recommendations for car hire?

[C240Sport97]

need to hire a car in Hawaii over Christmas 12.

any suggestions on which company and what websites?

Holiday Autos has quite a good price, but not sure what they are like.

Thanks.

 

[Chrishazle]

I've used holiday autos a few times without problem. They also got the excess back for me when I had a minor crunch with a rental Astra in Austria (crunched a wing mirror, rental mob took about 600 eurosovs from my credit card, but holiday autos rentals include CDW so I got it back!).

 

[mct_cars]

I used National in the States - but book via the US website, as it's cheaper than booking via the .co.uk.

 

[gaz_l]

Hi Sean,

I used Budget when I was there on honeymoon. We were based on Oahu so I rented a car for the week - we got a Chevy Malibu, actually quite an OK car.

Couple of things to note -

We did a couple of day trips to other islands, did a day on Maui and a day on big island. Budget's computer system threw a hissy fit when I tried to take out another car (having left the Malibu in the car park at Honolulu airport), requiring manual overrides but it all got sorted.

Second thing was I decided on the spur of the moment to change cars when we got to Maui as we wanted to go up to the observatories. Changed the booked Mustang for a Jeep which was a) sh1te and b) I got stiffed a $100 upgrade charge. Bad decision, that one.

Hope you have a good time . I'd love to go back one day but it's a big planet and Hawaii's a hell of a long way..

Cheers,

Gaz

 

[RichardM]

I've used holiday autos a few times without problem. They also got the excess back for me when I had a minor crunch with a rental Astra in Austria (crunched a wing mirror, rental mob took about 600 eurosovs from my credit card, but holiday autos rentals include CDW so I got it back!).

I've had good and bad experience with Holiday Autos. One issue is you don't know which car hire company it will be until you have paid and it can be a real cheap and cheerful company with tatty cars.

 

[Deleted member 11979]

When traveling to the states, my local travel agent used to get me a great priced flight that was cheaper than anything I could find online, that included a free hire car, used to upgrade to a Mustang convertible for $50 a week IIRC.

 

[C240Sport97]

turns out that as it's slap bang in the middle of peak season (christmas week), going directly to car hire web sites does not work, all sold out.

expedia.co.uk was by far the best (Alamo, which I have used before and is OK). expedia.com was 100% more expensive.

 

[@MARK]

I've had good and bad experience with Holiday Autos. One issue is you don't know which car hire company it will be until you have paid and it can be a real cheap and cheerful company with tatty cars.

Kind of matches my experience however one thing you can be sure of is that the price you pay is it. There is no worries about being stung for various "add ons" that you often get and their customer service is pretty good.

I have never had a "bad" car although sometimes the cars are older than you would get from the likes of Avis etc

 

[RichardM]

I've had good and bad experience with Holiday Autos. One issue is you don't know which car hire company it will be until you have paid and it can be a real cheap and cheerful company with tatty cars.

Kind of matches my experience however one thing you can be sure of is that the price you pay is it. There is no worries about being stung for various "add ons" that you often get and their customer service is pretty good.

I have never had a "bad" car although sometimes the cars are older than you would get from the likes of Avis etc

In the US I've always had pretty good cars and they were from Alamo which is fine. In Italy I had a really tatty old Ford Focus given to me with no other cars available, the stereo didn't work, lots of dents and stank inside.

I recently tried to book for Stansted Airport and it was a company based 20 miles away not even at or near the airport. Reviews weren't good either so I cancelled. I won't be using them again.