LAX car rental
 

Any big differences between car companies as far as long lines, quick shuttles, etc. Do the big companies offer any advantages over the discount companies?
See some great rates for Fox and Deluxe, but have never rented at LAX, and have no experience with these 2. Any info appreciated!

I'm not really sure. I am going to LAX soon and am renting from Advantage. They had the best rates I could find. I am just hoping for the best. :-)

It's hard to say what the differences would be, except in the cars. Rates are dependent on availability of cars on a specific date.

Check out rates at websites such as Travelocity, which will give you a range of rates.

If you are renting over a weekend, Enterprise usually has a 1/2 rate, Thursday afternoon/night to Monday night. Check out their website.

Otherwise, if you know how to bid on Priceline, you can get a car for about $12-$18, depending on size. If you are planning to bid on Priceline, IT IS CRITICAL that you read

biddingfortravel.com

first, before you bid. Scroll down past the hotels and airlines sections and click on the "cars" "Los Angeles" thread to see the latest successful bid rates. Also read their guidelines on how to bid. Almost all of the major car companies participate in Priceline.

Good luck! :)

The bigger companies have bigger, and I think more frequent, shuttles.

Some of the rental car companies, like Budget and Avis, are pretty easy to find when you return. Others, like National/Alamo, are a bit out of the way. I would stick with the larger companies because I know what I would get.

I have rented from Delux (previously Ace at LAX) several times. They are the cheapest, and even more so when you book on line and print out and take one of their coupons with you. Their trams stop at the red tram stops at the airport. Sometimes there is a wait to check in or out, but no more so then any of the big compaines, most of which, I have rented from at LAX prior to finding Delux.

Is Delux any further off site than the other companies? Did you have to wait longer for a shuttle than the big companies? Thanks!

Do a search for a map of car rental companies at LAX. If Deluxe does not come up it is near the corner of Aviation and Imperial, accross from Parking Lot B south of most of the rental places. In my opinion it is in a less congested area. Deluxe also runs Johnny Park, a low price parking garage, so you get picked up at the RED tram stops at the airport, not the usual (I think it is purple) tram stop for rental cars. (They are next to each other.) Once I waited maybe 10 minutes for a tram, but solved that in subsiquent times by calling them when I got to baggage claim to make sure a tram was in the airport area. Even though it is located accross from Lot B and you can take that tram, don't as it is always full. I go often and rent for a month at a time and they are by far the cheapest. They also do not pester you to buy additional insurance, as most of the big guys do. I have only had good experiences with them, but I'm sure like everything else there will be someone who didn't like them.

Actually, Aviation & Imperial is twice as far from the terminal as Avis and Budget. Those big guys do not pester me at all about insurance, they just circle where to initial the CDW and where to sign.

But neither are that far, really. If you drive to LAX and follow the car rental return signs you'll make it to Avis & Budget, probably not National, and pretty sure not the other. Just make sure you know where to return to and you are ok.

Alamo has a shuttle.The personnel however are a bit pushy.Dont let them push you to take extra insurance or an upgrade in cars.PAul

I've had such good luck renting and returning with Dollar there. Getting the free "fast" pass makes the check in and return really easy. And they seem to have very frequent shuttles to their lot.

I have used many of the big companies and never had any real problems other then the usual lines and pushing for insurance. In my experience Deluxe is no easier or harder to use than any of the rental companies at LAX. I have used Delux exclusively the last two years soley because it was far and away the cheapest. (Don't forget the 10% coupon when price comparing.) If the next time I need a LAX rental some other company has a better deal, I will go with them.

I rented from Budget the last time, and I had a 1+ hour wait in line to get a car last June.

My suggestion is to figure out which car rental place you prefer, and then join the 'preferred customer's club', or whatever they call it, and you can go directly to the 'preferred' window, otherwise you have to wait in long lines with us mere mortals.

I've heard it's a mess trying to drive around LAX. Heard it was better to get a ride to your hotel, and rent from there?? Any truth to those comments?? I've never driven around there, so I really don't know.
Frank

Let me make this so easy...
Horrible company...

judge for yourself...

my experience
www.deluxerentacar.info

Trip Advisor
http://www.tripadvisor.com/ShowTopic...alifornia.html

yahoo local
http://local.yahoo.com/info-20417363...ar-los-angeles


Yelp.com
http://www.yelp.com/biz/deluxe-rent-...efSnjVRA3R283w

More Info
www.myspace.com/deluxerentacar
www.youtube.com/deluxerentacar

hmmmm. When I click on your first link (your experience) I keep getting a "warning of unsafe site" and a refusal from my computer to open it.

I'm assuming from your newly registered screen name, though, that you DO NOT recommend Deluxe.

Have flown into LAX a number of times, but the last time was about 3 yrs ago, so don't know how they are recently. But we have always used Dollar. Shuttles to & from airport are frequent & it is not really that far from the airport. Easy to get into & out of their property. The have a large parking garage with usually more than enough rentals for everybody that shows up. The past few times I have been there though, the wait in line to check in for a car had been about 30 - 45 mins or even a bit longer. You may be able to bypass that if you join their club.

Bill. Exactly. The last time I picked up a Dollar rental at LAX, there was a huge line. There was a separate line for Dollar Express members (which thankfully I am). I waited less than two minutes!

Oddly, just today I started pricing one week rentals at LAX for September. I had a great Costco price for Avis ($ 196 total) and a discount code for National ($175 total). But Dollar quoted me $150 total as a "city special" right off their website. Interestingly, before add ons, this is about $15 a day. Since Priceline adds extra to the other add ons, I find it hard to imagine getting a better deal by bidding. And I'd rather not have to pay and risk losing full payment, when there is no such risk with Dollar.

OK. I live in L.A. county so I've never rented a car from the airport, but although I own a car, I've rented cars MANY times...i.e. while car is being serviced at the shop, out-of-town tourists/visitors thus need a bigger car, etc. And I've rented cars while on vacation in other states.
And as far as I'm concerned, it's Hertz. I go to them first as I've had excellent results with them and the only time they were a bit slow was in Honoulu, but only on one trip...when it was very crowded. Otherwise, I've gotten great service and cars. In Honolulu, when I asked for a Subaru, very late one night, they brought over a brand new one for me in which I was the first person to rent it. So, I'll stick with them over the tons of other agencies I've rented from. Happy Travels!

I'd probably go with Hertz too if I didn't care how much I spent. But unless you have some major corporate discount, I have found that Hertz is invariably at least 30% higher than Dollar, Budget, Alamo and others -- and often as much as double. I think of them as the big "corporate travel" player. Things like the AAA discount are a drop in the bucket off their high prices, I find.

Not necessarily true in LA area. I've done a lot of pricing for a visiting friend over the years. Usually Enterprise, Dollar or Hertz is the winner when you thow in the discount code. Hertz tends to be best if you're picking up and dropping off at different locations. However we have not tried the "off brands".

If you care about what you get, for example if you have a fair amount of luggage, check the car model offered at the rate you're booking. Dollar and Enterprise tend to offer a "micro" car even at the compact level, whereas with Hertz you'll get something larger and with more bells and whistles.

OK, if you say so. I hadn't checked Hertz to compare with my other bids for LAX in September, so I just did -- with an AAA discount.

So here they are:
Dollar: $150
National: $175
Avis: $196
Hertz: $237

This is similar to what I've found whenever I have checked.

All are for economy or compact cars. I usually get an upgrade if I want one at Dollar. However, usually I don't. With just two of us and the cost of gas, I'm usually happiest with a small economy car when traveling -- unless we plan on doing major driving, which would be rare.

Oh, and just for fun, I checked Hertz and Dollar both for the same period for a mid size SUV from LAX. To be fair, I did both without any discounts. Hertz: $399. Dollar: $235.

I have never paid that much for a car at Hertz. I've called them directly for cars most of the time. I've always paid from around $21.99- maybe about $35.tops per day for a car before the taxes,here in L.A... so as for those prices you're quoting, I have absolutely no idea what that's about.
For the poster, what you could do is take the super shuttle to your hotel and then rent a car from a car rental place closer to the hotel.There are a lot of Enterprise companies around and they'll pick you up and take you to their rental car place as others will usually also do. The prices might be lower if not at an airport rental sight. Happy Travels!

Guenmai, now I don't know what you're talking about. That $ 237 a week from Hertz for an economy car is about $34 a day AFTER taxes, or about $25 a day BEFORE taxes, which sounds like what you pay. It's just that the others are a lot less. Dollar for the same car is about $16 a day before taxes.

The taxes and add ons are a lot!

This thread is from March of last year, you know.

OK..NeoPatrick...I must have missed something as I did not see in your quoted prices that you were pricing by the week. I reread your post and maybe I've overlooked it again. Someone above was mentioning something about over the weekend prices and as I and many of us locals don't rent by the week, I think of prices in short individual week days or weekend days.
Also, since you commented on how expensive Hertz was over the others, I assumed that you were quoting weekend prices. Happy Travels!

Sorry for the confusion, but in my first post here I clearly stated "Oddly, just today I started pricing one week rentals at LAX for September. . ." The OP never mentioned weekend, daily, or week rentals, so there as much logic to think in terms of week rentals as there is to assume it is a weekend only. But just to be sure, I cleaarly stated I was looking at week long rentals.

You also said, "since you commented on how expensive Hertz was over the others, I assumed that you were quoting weekend prices." Huh? Are you suggesting that Hertz's week long prices may be much higher than the others, but their weekend prices wouldn't be? What would be the basis for that kind of logic -- assuming that prices would only affect weekend rates?


The whole point was not the difference between daily, two or three day, or weekly rentals, but clearly was only meant to show the correlation of the prices between different companies. I stand by my original point about Hertz being lots more expensive than any of the others. If you love Hertz and don't care about the prices you pay-- or if you have some wonderful special corporate price from Hertz -- then fine. Sorry, you were misunderstanding the entire point I was trying to make. I hope this has cleared it up.

Prices for car rentals also vary based on supply and demand.

I just had to price a week in Long Beach in October. Hertz for a compact was $150 TOTAL including taxes (with only an Autoclub discount). Enterprise was at $184.

If you rent at LAX as opposed to a HLE (Hertz Local Edition) you will pay extra taxes for the airport.

You're right about supply and demand, mlgb. And of course where you rent makes a big difference too. Although again let me point out that I could get a full week rental from Dollar at LAX for the same $150 (total including taxes) you're talking about for just a weekend one from Hertz at Long Beach. Too bad there's no Dollar at Long Beach.

Patrick has some great points here.


I used FOX in early July and found the wait after our arrival to be too long(40 minutes). In fact even though I got a great deal on a PT Cruiser convertible, the inconvenience of the long wait would prevent me from using them again.

Going forward I plan on using AVIS which I've had great luck with as they have some decent rates but more importantly the wait times are minimal and service is excellent.

I would use Hertz but I believe their rates aren't worth the premium you would pay over the other car rental companies.

Don't pay $196 with Avis when there is a coupon on the DEALS page of their website for $30 off.

Or , there's another coupon for 5000 Delta miles with a week's rental if you need miles. (this one's on the Delta website)

clark, since that $196 from Avis comment was mine, I guess you're talking to me. But why would I use a $30 coupon to reduce Avis to $ 166, when Dollar is already $150? You bring up a good point, though. I think some agencies, Hertz and Avis in particular are usually much higher because they offer all kinds of specials if you qualify or can use them. Those are fine, but still may not be the lowest price. I think it just again shows that paying their regular or simple discounted prices really are generally much higher than some other sources -- they need to be to allow those coupons, etc.

That rate I quoted was for a full week.

I don't see that I said for a weekend.

Also, consider that the Hertz cars are generally a step up in options.

Forgive me. I was still whirling from the comments from the other poster about all prices being assumed to be weekends, and then I did the same thing!

I'm not sure what you mean by "a step up in options". I have rarely if ever not been given an automatic upgrade with Dollar without even a certificate for it. I'm not sure what "options" you are referring to. Give me power windows, power doorlocks, and cruise control and I'm happy. I can only recall once not having all of those automatically -- and that was on the lowest grade car. What else do I want?

Yes, my friend does rent the economy or the compact. She has used Dollar in the past. You may get a car with no cruise control, believe it or not. Also things like a larger engine, enclosed and/or larger trunk, better options on the CD/radio, better seating. If you rent a strippo compact (especially from a US manufacturer) you don't get much.

I think she's always had a/c and automatic transmission, fortunately.

And definitely no power locks or windows.

Don't say "definitely" no power locks or windows. You have reminded me that ONCE when we rented the cheapest car possible from Dollar in Phoenix we didn't have either, although oddly the car did have cruise control. But the other 20 or more times we've rented the cheapest car from Dollar we've ALWAYS had them. (Although again, we almost always get upgraded at least one grade). One out of twenty is hardly a "definitely you won't".

You're right, I shouldn't have said definitely. More like "possibly". She hasn't been so fortunate as to get the upgrades. The worst car she had from Dollar was a Dodge Neon, which was a bit stripped but not really awful, and much better than the car she got one time from Enterprise (I can't remember what it was, but she swore Enterprise off after that).

This past year I'll take Avis and 5000-10000 delta miles anytime over Dollar or budget at $25 less. Four rentals cost me (maybe$100) more but for my $100 I got a free trip on Delta that would have cost me $387.
And with Avis I get a free day certificate with every 3rd or 4th rental.