Dollar Car Rental - USA

ferf1223

neilm22 wrote: »

I have also checked prices with carhire3000, and the all-inclusive price is cheaper, a Ford Fusion saloon for £214, but again I have emailed them to confirm no one-way fee and also enquiring as to the cost of a tank of fuel, which is not stated as included in the price.

Does anyone know these answers from experience? I will post them up when I get the answers back from them...

For CH3000 it depends who the rental is with - you don't know until you book and you get your voucher...but if there is a one-way fee, they will advise you and give you an option of either taking that one, or going for another without a one-way fee, etc. They do a premium package which includes a tank of petrol and additional driver...if you don't take that package, you have to pay for the petrol at the time you pick up (at least with Dollar and pre-paying at the desk will be a condition of booking)...in my experience pre-paying at the time you collect is competitive with buying at a petrol station...it's not pre-paying for a tank of fuel and not returning the car full that can be expensive.

I have found with Dollar, that if you are a member of their Express programme (free) they will give you the option to buy a tank of fuel up front or return full - even though the voucher says you are obliged to pre-pay for a tank...always been the case with my rentals - can't say it's always given as an option but has been for me.

tarkytarks

Just for info the focus equiv size car we had (the nissan) was advertised as holding 2 suitcases, in reality the boot was pretty big and we had no probs with it holding 2 big cases as well as all of the other bags of stuff I managed to aquire along the way (bags of shopping, rucksacks, coats, stuff just thrown in on top). Wld easily have held at least 1 other case with spare space.

neilm22

I have booked for 11 days with CH3000 at £194, no one-way fees.

Now to find out about the premium packages...

But pretty well priced I must say.

ferf1223

normally you choose the premium package at the time you book...in the list of cars, it will give the option for several types of car with the package...will show as Premium Package: Price includes additional drivers over 25 & a tank of fuel or something along those lines.

chrisvaldez

ferf1223 wrote: »

Could they show you signed off on the roadside recovery? Normally that's something that's offered and you have to decline, and you initial to show those extras you accepted and those things you declined. Do you have a copy of your contract and can you see that you did not accept it? Think they call it Road Safe.

Unfortunately all my paperwork was left in the US when I came home. In the glovebox of all places!

I do remember him asking me if I wanted it and answering 'no'. So I know for a fact it was fraudulently charged! The feeling I got from them was 'make my day' when I threatened to initiate a chargeback!

Murphy_The_Cat

stphnstevey wrote: »

Thanks for this, it seems Dollar are the only ones that DON'T charge a one way rental (Alamo now do).

book via USRentacar and neither Alamo or Dollar charge one way between Nevada, California & Arizona.

edit, but this link says that only Dollar doesn't charge the one way between Nevada, California & Arizona -- obviously worth checking out rather than relying on what some bloke on t'internet says

Hastobe_Katt

We travel quite a lot and so take out an annual insurance policy to cover CDW / hire car insurance excess. We use www.insurance4carhire.co.uk.

Murphy_The_Cat

Hastobe_Katt wrote: »

We travel quite a lot and so take out an annual insurance policy to cover CDW / hire car insurance excess. We use www.insurance4carhire.co.uk.

why ?

By the look of this link, USrentacar don't have an excess for Dollar, Alamo & Budget cars, so is paying an additional excess insurance necessary ? (BTW, I was surprised how much it is - from your link, 31 days cover in the US is £65. :eek:)

mrnomoneybags

We done exactly the same thing in 2009, We hired a care with autocar3000 (dollar) picked it up at the Excalibur and dropped it of at LAX.

For 10 days Hire of a Basic car (Dodge Caliber) was £150 we used the basic included insurance and bought extra excess insurance for about £20

Sat Nav, borrow one or maybe use your phone with co-pilot etc? (just make sure you turn of your roaming data)

San Diego is lovely, the old town is nice and the food is amazing.

Enjoy

Hastobe_Katt

Murphy_The_Cat wrote: »

why ?

By the look of this link, USrentacar don't have an excess for Dollar, Alamo & Budget cars, so is paying an additional excess insurance necessary ? (BTW, I was surprised how much it is - from your link, 31 days cover in the US is £65. :eek:)

We have a second home in France so travel there a lot (as well as other travel - we home exchange so travel abroad a lot). The typical excess when hiring a car in Europe is ~€1,000 and insurance to eliminate that excess is as much as €13 per day. The above policy is an annual policy covering multiple car hire rentals of up to 31 days duration each. We had the worldwide cover last year as we travelled to the Caribbean on a home exchange for three weeks - plus our trips to France.

For us, the policy has been good value for money.