Car Rental - Liberia Airport
 

Hi,
Ive checked with a few agencies for rental 4X4 SUV Automatic at Liberia airport for 10 days. They all vary in price and whether automatic or not. Please help me choose!

When I book online, the booking says Automatic or Manual, so I dont know if they will charge more for Auto when i land there.
I also need 2 car seats, one for 8mth old & 1 for 5 yr old kid, Vamos offer one free car seat & another for $1.95 which I found the cheapest.
Also, my Visa offers CDW coverage, but the rentals ask for mandatory insurance for about $15-20 per day! can I avoid this?

This said, which is the best car rental for not being surprised with the hidden costs, car seat availability, customer service, ease, kid-friendly among: Service, Vamos, Budget, Avis at Liberia airport.

Please help!

Preeya

Insurance first: you can use your credit card CDW coverage, but there is a mandatory liability coverage that you will have to pay that runs somewhere between $10 and $20 a day, depending.

If the booking says "automatic or manual" then this would indicate to me that it is the same price to rent either one, which I am pretty sure is the case.

I would rate Service as the best, lots of people like Vamos and Budget and Avis are OK, from what I hear and read.

Hi, I just posted about this on the other Costa Rica car rental question and am pasting this below. TAKE THE LOCAL COMPANY'S INSURANCE.

I've posted about this before, so you can probably find it in an old post somewhere, but you really can't beat booking through Costa Rica Surf for car rentals. Jeff, the travel agency owner here in the US, is an absolute expert and has a direct relationship with Europcar and Adobe.

If you take the full coverage or SLDW, the deposit is $100. We saw some companies who were charging $1500 to $2500 deposit even with the SLDW.

We rented through Europcar and their service was flawless.

www.crsurf.com

If you have CDW on your credit card, forget about buying full cover insurance. This will jump the price up, Just make sure the car rental company accepts this and bring a letter from your bank to prove it.There is no way to get off the liability issue because that is the way car rental companies protect thenselves again lawsuites.Check and compare the liability fees.

We've had great luck with Solid (office at the Hilton across from the airport): 4WD Jimny (in January) for 16 days, ~$500 everything included.
We brought proof of collision coverage from the cc company (a letter), which they didn't ask for, and pick up and drop off went smoothly. We communicated via e-mail a couple of times, to be sure we were getting what we wanted. No problems.