Renting a car in USA

[smart]

Evening all

Going to Boston, MA for a week end of November. Missus and her family are there for the shopping, I’m there to carry/pay for stuff....

Anyways there’s a massive military museum just outside of town (American heritage museum) and I fancy hiring something very American for a day and driving out there.

Now, in Vegas last year we hired a car to drive to Grand Canyon (In some terrible Nissan suv) advertised price was $70 dollars for 24hrs. Great I thought, by the time we’d left the rental place (hertz I think) the price had risen to near $300 with all the hidden costs and insurances. This led to my future father in law simulating having his trousers pulled down and being shafted to the bemused American staff! He had to explain the meaning of this while I paid.....

Has anyone hired something cool in the US for a reasonable price or am I just dreaming?

[m30rmf]

We went to florida couple years ago, was recommended to use discount car hire, cost us around £300 the fortnight iirc...
Picked up from Alamo counter, was told on collection I could upgrade to anything in the parking lot for $10 per day more!!

Not sure where else they operate in the US, was a guy in Hull I dealt with, he buys block bookings from the big guys and passed a good saving onto the customer!

[gryphon]

Not sure about the cost, but take a look at Turo? It's a little like the Airbnb of car rentals, interesting cars and the listings are for exactly the car you get.

Edit: Hummer H2 for $145/day? Lots of trucks, not much by way of muscle from a quick search...
turo.com/us/en-us/suv-rental/norwood-ma/hummer/h2/581129


We just tried to rent a C segment hatchback in Europe and got given a Jeep Renegade instead with no option to go smaller. Detestable car.

[jamesd1972]

Get some hire car excess insurance from someone like Questor and avoid the pants being pulled down.
If you need to claim it can be a faff but they do pay out.
James

www.questor-insurance.co.uk/?advertid=300325&gclid=Cj0KCQjwh8jrBRDQARIsAH7BsXdEf5U1NLO0j3b37kN_s5MD5V2jCVzij7emgmFgAMdS8vkgL44s10MaArQDEALw_wcB

[moglite]

I've hired from enterprise in Boston airport.
Weird setup, you pay for whatever class of car you want....
Then you go to the garage in a minibus and pick the car you fancy from that class you've paid for.
Keys are in the ignition - it gets scanned as you leave the garage.
They had some modern muscle cars.

I was on a company deal, so I've no idea on price alas.

[jamesd1972]

Pretty standard set up at big rental places in my experience. Big advantage I've found but you occasionally score much better cars- I book using Hertz and at SFO I could choose any car from the gold section (I'd booked a standard VW Jetta or similar)



Yeehaa !

(Not sure the boss approved of my fuel bill though !)

James

[smart]

Sept 6, 2019 10:38:30 GMT gryphon said:

Not sure about the cost, but take a look at Turo? It's a little like the Airbnb of car rentals, interesting cars and the listings are for exactly the car you get.

Edit: Hummer H2 for $145/day? Lots of trucks, not much by way of muscle from a quick search...
turo.com/us/en-us/suv-rental/norwood-ma/hummer/h2/581129


We just tried to rent a C segment hatchback in Europe and got given a Jeep Renegade instead with no option to go smaller. Detestable car.

Very interesting option, would have to look into the insurance side of things

[gryphon]

Sept 7, 2019 5:47:11 GMT smart said:

Very interesting option, would have to look into the insurance side of things

Pretty sure that's all covered by turo too, not sure if it's extra on the daily price though.

[Kelvinator]

I rented from Hertz USA a couple of months ago (got a new Mustang convertible for the day in LA), booking online, and had no hidden costs. I guess if you go in there to hire on the spot it may be different, but I've hired a few cars in a couple of different countries and never had an issue, but I always book online. The Mustang was 112USD for the day.

In regards to Turo, I looked into that too, but not being a US resident made me very wary about what insurance cover they have. There is always the chance, like AirBNB, that the booking can be cancelled before you get there and you're left high and dry, or they just don't show up.

[mrbounce]

3 years ago my friend and I rented a top of the range SUV for our trip around the SF area. We rented from Hertz and booked and paid for it a year in advance. Cost us £442 for the week but we paid for the top insurance. We got a GMC Yukon XL which is an absolute MONSTER of a car (the sort of thing you'd expect the FBI to run around in) and it came with every conceivable extra, including air-conditioned seats.

However, one thing I would be very aware of is that a lot of rentals are General Motors vehicles, and although they have SatNav installed as standard, these are set to a subscription basis so they won't work. Most rental companies will hire out a "GPS unit" which is basically a plug in SatNav, but this will cost you at least $100. You're far better off uploading US maps to a TomTom or similar and use that instead.

Me and the enormous rental!

[nalesutol]

We used Alamo. Booked in the UK so no queuing to pick up, simply walked into the car lot and had a choice. No hidden extras and no issues.

[Pid363!]

We always go for flight and car in a deal used hertz Alamo amongst others for our racing trips. Always go for the bringing it back empty option. Most cars these days have sat nav or use your phone. Different company’s have different options for tolls but never had a problem

[smart]

Cheers for the replies guys. Turo seems great but very grey area over insurance so probably steer clear.

Seems public transport or 'walking' isn't really an option either!