car rental company - which one?

[disneyholic family]

i can't believe i'm asking this, as i thought i was an alamo only kind of girl..

but i've been playing with the online reservation systems, and got exactly the same quote from national and alamo....

so i have 2 questions:

At alamo you get to pick out any car you want from a row of cars in the same class. Is that also true for National?

For those of you who have rented from both Alamo and National, do you have a preference? I know they're owned by the same company, but i thought i'd ask just in case....perhaps there is a difference? (as in age/maintenance of cars)

Also, are there any other car hire companies at MCO (besides alamo and possibly national) that permit you to pick whichever car you want from a row of same class cars?

 

[wayneg]

Never rented from National.
We used Alamo(just 4 days due to volcano) last month for 1st time in over 10 years when I fell out with them. Booked full size, they gave me a row to choose from, majority of the cars were intermediate, I had to go right to the far end to find full size, had a choice of 2 cars, took the Dodge charger looked newest and best, only had delivery mileage on clock.
The week before we had rented from Dollar who now give you a row to choose from, we were allocated a car as we were Dollar express and had a car in prestige collection booked but their full size line was a far better choice than Alamo.
Before Easter I would not entertain Alamo, Dollar would be my 1st choice after 20+ faultless rentals but now I would use whoever has the best price, Alamo are by far better than they were 10 years ago.

 

[disneyholic family]

Never rented from National.
We used Alamo(just 4 days due to volcano) last month for 1st time in over 10 years when I fell out with them. Booked full size, they gave me a row to choose from, majority of the cars were intermediate, I had to go right to the far end to find full size, had a choice of 2 cars, took the Dodge charger looked newest and best, only had delivery mileage on clock.
The week before we had rented from Dollar who now give you a row to choose from, we were allocated a car as we were Dollar express and had a car in prestige collection booked but their full size line was a far better choice than Alamo.
Before Easter I would not entertain Alamo, Dollar would be my 1st choice after 20+ faultless rentals but now I would use whoever has the best price, Alamo are by far better than they were 10 years ago.

Thanks Wayne - i'm going to go play with the dollar reservation system and see what comes up..
can anyone sign up for dollar express? does it cost anything to sign up?

national has "emerald aisle" but when i tried to sign up, it seemed as though you have to live in the US or Canada....so i gave up trying...

 

[wayneg]

Express is free. Some people don't like to join these schemes as you have to enter you credit card details but I have been in it about 4 years now, great service.

http://www.dollar.com/Express/LearnMore.aspx

Have you tried Expedia and other international agents, maybe ebookers etc. should be cheaper than direct with rental companies.

 

[disneyholic family]

Express is free. Some people don't like to join these schemes as you have to enter you credit card details but I have been in it about 4 years now, great service.

http://www.dollar.com/Express/LearnMore.aspx

Have you tried Expedia and other international agents, maybe ebookers etc. should be cheaper than direct with rental companies.

thanks Wayne, i'm going to try now and see..