advice on renting a car in hawaii

[dealguy2]

You might want to consider a priceline name your own price bid. I have had found pretty good deals on recent trips to Hawaii. I had a fullsize car (which ended up being a free upgrade to a minivan, due to a shortage of fullsize vehicles) for $14 a day ($356 total for 2 weeks). I also had a midsize on Oahu for $13 a day for 10 days ($181 after taxes, etc).

The downside is that you will likley have to pay if you want an extra driver and you can't cancel.

This is good advice. Reserve something through costco and then use priceline to try and get a better price.

[wszeto28]

Sort of off topic but remember to factor in insurance costs as it can ad up quickly. If you can get a credit card than can cover you for rental cars, it'll reduce the cost as you will probably only have to purchase third party coverage.

[fantom]

Sort of off topic but remember to factor in insurance costs as it can ad up quickly. If you can get a credit card than can cover you for rental cars, it'll reduce the cost as you will probably only have to purchase third party coverage.

yeah, get a gold visa of some sort or a card that covers that... the best suggestion I ever got back in the day.

[ryanmission]

Dude, just go to www.thrifty.com

I compared Budget, Avis and everyone else - couldn't beat this price.

Here is my rental in Hawaii last year, and I got a big freakin' Jeep too, $199 + $23 in taxes for a whole week:



And if they have them in Maui, they should have shuttles to the rental office or the office itself should be right in the Airport.

See, it would be awesome if we could get prices like this...but this is what happens:

We're there for 10 days...so we get billed some sweet rate of like, $130/wk, and then for the next 3 days we get charged something absolutely stupid, like $40/day.

130+120...

+75 mandatory fee (7.50/day)
+ 30 recovery fee
+ taxes

Suddenly..

$400. (for a compact w/ intermediate upgrade - ford focus or similar)

(Numbers are partially made up to show my point, since i dont have my invoice readily available)

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Im considering trying to book 7 days @ a promo weekly rate, and using a coupon or something for upgrades and/or a $/% off.
And then making another booking of 3 days and using another coupon.

We might even get rid of our first day rental, since we wont land / be out of the airport until 8pm (estimated - we're supposed to land around 6pm @ OGG)
- if we opt for this, we'd need to shuttle/cab it to our beach house and then maybe have the rental company drop off the car in the morning? Are there any companies that do this in Maui-Hawaii?

[dealguy2]

We might even get rid of our first day rental, since we wont land / be out of the airport until 8pm (estimated - we're supposed to land around 6pm @ OGG)
- if we opt for this, we'd need to shuttle/cab it to our beach house and then maybe have the rental company drop off the car in the morning? Are there any companies that do this in Maui-Hawaii?

Maybe look into renting off airport? If you do separate reservations you will need to go back to the airport after the 7 days and "drop-off" the car and "pick it up". Your best bet is to reserve something and keep watching for cheaper prices using the costco site and then also bid on priceline. Rental car rates and promos can change daily. I once had a rental for honolulu that started out at $300 and came down to just under $100 for a week all taxes in.

[ryanmission]

Yea, we still have our reservation with Thrifty..its sitting at about $388 or so for 10 days for a ford focus.

That is with 2 primary drivers age 25+.

We're going to add myself as well...im only 24 so it's about $10/day to add me, so i assume $500 flat.

We'll be keeping this reservation, unless we find something better. (Which is looking to be unlikely).

We originally wanted a Jeep Wrangler, but there's no room for 4 suit cases and carry ons in that...unless we got the 4Dr and paid with our blood for gas.