Cheap USA car hire - any ideas?

Redrum_2

I'm going to the West Coast of the US this summer to do a bit of a fly-drive holiday for 2 weeks. Have got the flights all booked (saved money of course!!), but does anyone have any hints/tips/discounts for car hire?

It's looking like a minimum of about £280 to hire a basic car for the 2 weeks, so any assistance with getting this figure down would be most gratefully received!!

mike_paterson

http://www.carhire-direct.com/ were really good when I last visited the states - I trawled around and got the cheapest quote, and then went to these guys and they beat the lowest quote I had.

jeanna_2

hi i booked with auto europe for 1 week new york to boston £177.it was the best price i could find.
jenna

Backbiter

http://carhire.airline-network.co.uk/carhire/index.asp

They gave us a fantastic deal in Miami two years ago, with Dollar. No other company came close.

ctm_2

https://www.simplycarhire.com were the best price I managed to get before.

neilh_3

After extensive research........(I'm Scottish so it's in my nature to save the pennies) the cheapest I found was https://www.Yescarhire.com.

£163 for 8 days one way hire from San Diego to San Fran in a weeks time for a Mid-size 4 door car. It's done through Alamo who I think are the cheapest on all the sites I looked at.

NeilH

blindman

Redrum wrote:

I'm going to the West Coast of the US this summer to do a bit of a fly-drive holiday for 2 weeks. Have got the flights all booked (saved money of course!!), but does anyone have any hints/tips/discounts for car hire?

It's looking like a minimum of about £280 to hire a basic car for the 2 weeks, so any assistance with getting this figure down would be most gratefully received!!

1 Pickup\drop off in town NOTat the airport, can be cheaper. Though work out how to get to\from airport !

2 Choose smallest car that will suit your needs, resist upsell when you get to hire car place and you may find they upgrade you for free anyway as they don't have any small cars in stock.

3 Be sure you hire for the sufficient days\ times you need.
I underestimated once , to save £20 and nearly got stung wth $200 extra charges for an extra 5 hrs! Meant a VERY early start on the last day:eek:

4 I found that £20 per day is about average for a small car, so your price looks OK.

5 Do you NEED a car for the whole two weeks? You don't say where you're going to\from and when I booked airline network allowed one way drop offs with no extra charge. Though the longer you book, the better the rate.

Cardew

Book in UK not from a USA site - its cheaper. (USA headline prices do not normally include insurance as American motorists can normally use their own insurance.)

£140 a week assuming it includes ALL insurance(SLI,CDW,UMP) is not bad. Does that include 2 drivers?

Baz-Bee

I have travelled all over the US and Canada using hire cars.

The only advice I can give is that over the past 12 years I have rarely found the same car hire company, agent or consolidator offered the best rate more than twice and rarely on consecutive visits.

The best advice is to use any companies that you know for quotes (most can be done on-line) and then google "Car Rental US" and check the UK sites tab before searching. Then just spend an hour or so seeing what you come up with. You will be surprised at the difference in prices.

I would always go for the fully inclusive deal (are you after extra drivers?) and do not get too small a car. If you are doing a lot of driving and have a couple of suitcases you are better of being comfortable than saving perhaps £20 over the fortnight by hiring a smaller car.

Redrum_2

Thanks all. Will spend a couple of hours this weekend checking all those sites out

MDUK

Do these other companies suggested do all inclusive prices.

I have booked part of the my journey already with holiday autos and they offer an all inclusvie price which includes, extra driver, full tank of petrol, additional insurance etc, so i wont' (hopefully) have any surprises.

Although they were compeitive on 10 days hire £370 for a seven seater picking up in Las Vegas and dropping off in San Francisco they are quoting £220 for just over 3 days hire in LA!