Car hire from Vancouver airport - which company?

jenny-wren

We need to hire a car from Vancouver Intl Airport from 23 June - 6 July. Last time we used Hertz and got upgraded to a great car but this time Hertz are quite a bit more expensive.

Has anyone hired a car at Vancouver or can anyone recommend the best company to use? We don't want a small car and have been looking at anything from a mid-size to full-size. We've only ever used Hertz, Alamo or National for previous North America trips and are keen to pick use one of the big name comapnies in order to have a better chance of getting a good car. We will arrive around 6pm so the changes of a free upgrade are likely (this has happened the past 2 times we've been).

Are there any pitfalls we should be looking out for by using one company over another? We would want to pre-pay and add CDW to the cover for 'just in case' peace of mind.

Maybe someone has a voucher code they'd be willing to share?!!

Our budget is ideally no more than £350.

Indout96

Cant help with which one to use as we did not have a car in vancouver but I can say that car hire in the US is going through the roof at the moment due to the problems with the US economy, they also seem to have less cars and are keeping them longer.

dogmaryxx

Use this http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/cheap-car-hire/canada/vancouver/ to compare prices

jenny-wren

OK, I think we've narrowed it down to Hertz, Avis or National.

Avis are quoting £320 for a 'standard' sized car (e.g. Pontiac G6) (23 June to 6 July). This includes using a discount code from 'Voucher Codes' (AWD G023600) that saves £30ish. The price includes loss damage waiver, unlimited km, additional liability insurance and tax. The vehicle damage and vehicle theft excesses are zero. This seems like a good deal to me as Hertz wanted well over £400.

We haven't used Avis before - is there anything I'm missing or that we should be looking out for? Call me paranoid but we want to be sure that we are covered if we do happen to have a 'bump'.

I'm guessing I might be able to use the discount code through Quidco and get a few extra pennies back too.

I quite fancy a Chrysler Sebring. Anybody managed to pick up one of these from Vancouver Airport?

Sorry for all the questions and thanks in advance for any replies

Dustykitten

Will you have a place to park ok in Vancouver? We did not hire a car when we went and got around fine and that was with a one year old in a stoller, a small 7 year old and a nine year old. You could save yourself a lot of money not having a car.

Nordictat2

I prefer to use Dollar when over there. They have cool cars. We just came back from a trip in the US with using Dollar and their fleet of cars were great too. We got a dodge charger or we could of had a upgrade to a chrysler 300.
Thirfty is also a good car hire with a nice fleet of cars too.

I usually book cars now thru https://www.netflights.com

jenny-wren

Dustykitten - we're staying with family outside Vancouver so parking's not an issue. They're out in the country so we really need a car to get about. We're hopefully going to fit in a few days on Vancouver Island and it'll be so much easier if we have wheels.

Nordictat2 - I'll check out NetFlights. Thanks.

jenny-wren

Nordictat2 - it looks like we've found a good deal. NetFlights cheapest price is £320 with Thrifty for the smallest car group.

old_motters

jenny-wren wrote: »

Dustykitten - we're staying with family outside Vancouver so parking's not an issue. They're out in the country so we really need a car to get about. We're hopefully going to fit in a few days on Vancouver Island and it'll be so much easier if we have wheels.

Nordictat2 - I'll check out NetFlights. Thanks.

Avis are equal to hertz. You should have no problems.

jenny-wren

I'm bumping the thread to ask another question.

If I hire a car from Avis at Vancouver Airport can I take it across the border into America for a few days without any problems? Do I have to declare that I intend to do this when I book?

Quintus

jenny-wren wrote: »

Nordictat2 - it looks like we've found a good deal. NetFlights cheapest price is £320 with Thrifty for the smallest car group.

I'd really avoid Thrifty like the plague. In fact, I would rather run screaming naked through an airport than hire a car from them again!

We've hired from them twice in Canada (forgot it was them the second time we booked). On both occasions there was very extended waits just to get to do all the paperwork. First occasion 45 minutes with 15 month old son. Second occasion almost 2 hours standing in line with our son (now a exhausted, hungry and vocal toddler). We got stuck with alot of extras, which put the price up beween 25-50% (so it wasn't the cheapest any more by a long way).

We ended up with a toddler car seats with no fitting instructions, which where terrible on both occasions. The staff would not help us at all and were under orders not to do so. Actually one man did help us out from shear pity. Even then the seat didn't fit properly and we never could make it so. Absolutely terrible experience.

No problems with the cars though.