car rentals in Hawaii
 

does anyone have any experiences with Thrifty/National/Dollar/Avis car rentals in Hawaii? i have seen quite a few negative comments on Alamo. how about the companies mentioned above? any comments will be appreciated.

The negative comments for alamo are strange to me, have rented through them several times in the last couple years (even a few months ago) and never a problem. Getting a convertible for a week in HNL in June for $230 (used a walmart coupon code I found online to book directly through their website). IMO, they consistently have the lowest rates.

oh and the $230 INCLUDES all taxes and fees and an additional driver.

We've also used Alamo on Kauai and never had a problem. Just spent 10 days there, used the Costco website and discount to book with Alamo. One tip, keep checking back after you have booked, rates flucuate alot and you can re-book at a lower rate and cancel your previous booking. I did this 6 times before we left.

thanks for the advice.

I've used Thrifty twice on Kauai. No problems. Reserved thru the Thrifty website. Last Aug, we paid $200 (total) for a full size for a week.

Never had any trouble with Alamo on Kaua'i unless I can blame them for me locking the car keys in the trunk of the Sebring convertible we rented from them. :-B
What a great "travel story" that was!
-Bill

I've got an Alamo car rented for an upcoming trip in May. For a full-size car for one week, total including all taxes is a whopping $111.62. (Costco discount plus $20 extra discount for a weekly rental.)

What have you heard about Alamo that is so negative?

Just rented a Sebring convertible from Alamo, in Honolulu, earlier this month, for $227 total.

We've had Dollar and National in HI. I don't recall any problem and I think we got decent rates. I don't think we ever used Alamo.

Kopp: Some of the negatives that I've read about Alamo are that they are terribly understaffed, particularly at Kona airport. Long lines to pick up car, and once picked up, car is oftentimes filthy and some with mechanical problems. There is a lot of info on tripadvisor concerning Alamo if you want to read more.

I just used Thrify on Kauai for a week in early April. I rented a Jeep Grand Cherokee. The rental fee was around $300 for an additional driver and the pre-paid gas option.

We were very happy we bought the gas option as gas rose 23 cents while we were there!

The only downside was the single counter representative at the airport check-in counter. Just make sure you have a reservation in hand. Thrify was sold-out when we were there.

Glad to see that some have had good experiences with Alamo. Went to Maui this past December and we weren't so lucky. The car was positively the most filthy thing we had ever seen. We had picked it up in the evening and after 18 hours traveling, thought the windows were just foggy from the humidity. When we got in and drove off, we discovered it was dirt. We stopped at Kmart outside of the airport to get windex/papertowels. The next day during the daylight hours, we discovered the inside of the car was extremely dirty, Debris, food particles, etc. in the seats and floor mats. The dash had some type of red mud like stain covering it.

There have been a few travelers on tripadvisor.com that have complained that their vehicles were so filthy, that they actually had roaches crawling throughout. Then they went through a tremendous hassle with Alamo to get a replacement vehicle.

I am encouraged that not everyone has not had this experience, but I know we won't be renting from them again.

We rented through National on Oahu and Maui for our January trip (minivan) and through Alamo on the Big Island (Kona). We were happy with National's price (cheaper than Alamo except for Kona). Oahu went very smoothly, they even had someone drop us off at the airport in our rental van so we didn't have to unload everything and reload it onto their shuttle bus. Maui was a bit of a wait for our vehicle as they couldn't find it! We finally walked over to a van and said, "Is this it?" They checked and said, Oh yeah, it was sitting here all along. It wasn't the minivan we ordered but a larger, industrial type van which was good for the luggage but not as convenient for passengers as there was no passenger door on the driver's side of the van so everyone had to slide across the seats to get out. Alamo at Kona Airport was actually the nicest minivan we got. I've had bad experiences with Alamo in the past but this one was okay. Had to wait in line to pick up the vehicle as their was no special treatment for the Club members but when we were waiting in line we witnessed an incident with a man returning his vehicle. When you pick up your car, there's usually someone to take a copy of the slip where you mark if there are any scrapes or dents, etc. on the car. At Alamo, there is no one at the gate, you just take your vehicle and drive off. There is a drop box at the side of the gate but no one tells you about it. If you don't put the slip in this box before you leave, they assume the vehicle had no marks on it. So if you bring the car back with marks on it, they will charge you for it. Thank goodness we witnessed this customer's dilemma so we knew to look for the drop box before we left the property as there are always marks on Alamo's cars (in fact on most rental vehicles).

Be very careful to read all the fine print. We found out Alamo charged $10 extra for the spouse to drive - which cut out all the savings we thought we had by renting through them.

Most of the complaints I had seen about Alamo was the one on Maui. Main issues were poor service and dirty vehicles. We have used Budget and Dollar on Kauai, Maui and Oahu and were pleased with each.

We've just returned from our Hawaii vacation (8/07). We used Discount Hawaii Car Rentals on two islands. All went unbelieveably smoothly with our reservations on both islands. Cheapest rates anywhere! Very reliable. Would definitely use them again. I will warn you though, if you incur any damage on your rental, Thrify can be quite the little-reamer. Discount Hawaii Car Rentals can't offer much help with this part. You might want to investigate signing up for the damage waiver option at time of contract signature. We're wishing we had.

I just booked through Discount Hawaii for our trip in December. Used them 3 years ago when we went and everything was great. The car was actually from Budget each time. I am paying a total of $285 for a full size car for 11 days.

We recently used Hertz on Kauai and Avis on Maui (the latter through Hotwire) without any problem. We got a Ford Focus through Hertz (this was part of a package with out hotel) and the Chevy version of a PT Cruiser (can't remember the name) through Avis. They were both fine. Avis through Hotwire was about $50 less expensive than the Alamo car we had previously reserved.