Parking in San Francisco
 

We are staying at the Hilton, Union Square next month & just found out that it will cost us an extra $41 + tax per night for parking. Does anyone know if there's another public garage near there that's cheaper?
Our car is a hire car so I'm thinking of asking the company if we can leave the car at there SF office until we leave. Has anyone done this in the past?

We were facing the same decision a few years ago, except on that trip SF was the first city on our itenerary. We decided to postpone getting a car until the day we left to drive to Reno.

It sounds like you will be visitig SF in the middle of a trip. Have you looked into returning the rental car while you are in SF, then picking up another one when you leave? Most agencies have a downtown office, so it won't be a long taxi ride to your hotel.

I suppose we could drop the car off & re-hire it again but as we're only going to be in SF for 2 days if I find a garage that is cheaper I would prefer that.

To save $41 per day, you could always park near the ocean at the end of the N Judah or L - Taraval MUNI lines. It takes about 30 minutes by streetcar to get into the center of town. Just make sure that there are no time restrictions and pay attention to the street cleaning signs.

You could park in the long term parking at San Francisco International Airport for less than $10 a day (some parking lots offer coupons. Check them out online. As little as $7.95 a day).

Then take BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) into San Francisco.

This is probably your cheapest option other than finding parking on the street.

I've found a garage in the same street as the Hilton; The Ellis O'Farrell garage which charges 29$ per day but only 12$ on Sunday, which is one of our days so I think we'll go for that. I wasn't expecting to park free but I just thought that 41$ was a bit steep.