Car Hire

[PrincessBelle39]

I know there has been many posts about car hire. Sorry but here's another. ]
I've always booked my car hire through yescarhire.com and we were lucky enough never to have a problem. They would work in a similar way to uscarhire.co.uk. About a week after we arrived last time they went broke and apparantly many who had booked through them did not get there (prepaid) cars. We were lucky we arrived when we did and had no problems. But this has made me nervous about booking with anyone other than the car rental companies direct.
We are leaving on a cruise following our stay at WDW. The only hire companies that have depot's there are Avis, Budget, Hertz, Thrifty, Dollar and Enterprise. I know with Alamo and National I should be able to get a quote with insurances included. We could drop off back in Orlando and take a town car to port if this was to work out significantly cheaper. I would prefer to have all insurances paid before we go rather than get caught out at the counter when we are tired.
However, when I enter in the National or Alamo site that I live in Australia, it says there are no cars available. But if I say I live in USA, then they are available. Does anyone know if I would have a problem by saying I reside in the USA?
Also what insurances do I need? I don't want to get caught out. My quote with National as a US resident gives me LDW and SLI.
Sorry that was so long.

 

[Franrose]

Hmm, was going to say could it be because they won't take an international credit card over the 'net, but that would be silly for a car hire company! (I know it applied when I tried to purchase stuff from T-mobile last night though.)

 

[WAMUMOF4]

we used usacarhire for ours had no problems at all with it we will certainly use them again was over $1000 difference between using them and going with National direct. Good luck with your decision.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

we used usacarhire for ours had no problems at all with it we will certainly use them again was over $1000 difference between using them and going with National direct. Good luck with your decision.

yescarhire.com was a similar difference. We used them 4 times with confidence between 2001 and 2009. I only found out they had gone broke when I recommended them to a friend who told me about the problems when she tried to book. It really makes me nervous. If we had arrived a week later for our last trip, we would have lost our money and had to rebook at a normal rate with someone else. I'm not sure what to do. I don't think I want to take the chance.

 

[Sugarglider]

I am not sure why you are getting that result - I too have been frequently getting quotes from Alamo and don't have that problem.
The reason why they want where you live is because they do include the right taxes and insurances in the quote. I have not tried to purchase using the US as the residence but you may then find that when you go to finalise the booking the system is expecting a US address.
I am tempted by Traveljigsaw

 

[PrincessBelle39]

I'm still having trouble with this. The quote I have is so good I don't want to lose it. I've emailed National but haven't had a reply yet. My quotes with other companies are so much higher and don't include insurance. I have tried using UK as a nationality and that works fine. It's just when I put in Australia.

 

[DVCAustralia]

I find it much easier to book direct with payment on drop-off rather than pre-pay, in particular with a third party.
Despite that, if you want to do that you can simply use a credit card that is easy to charge back on if something goes wrong, and make a separate booking direct (probably with a different car rental company) as a backup since there is no credit card required.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

I'm still looking at car hire. I emailed National Car Hire about changing our booking to Australian residents and they came back (after two emails) and said that I had to phone technical support which I haven't done yet.
With the dollar dropping I thought it would be good to prepay, so I've looked at uscarhire.com. The website is exactly the same as yescarhire that folded during our last trip. Even the silver and gold packages are the same. I cant see any difference. Despite us having a good experience with them, knowing what happened to all those others this makes me even more nervous. Does anyone know how long they have been around? The rate I have with National is cheaper than the one I'm getting with uscarhire.com but of course I can't prepay that and I still haven't fixed the residency thing.

 

[WAMUMOF4]

I'm still looking at car hire. I emailed National Car Hire about changing our booking to Australian residents and they came back (after two emails) and said that I had to phone technical support which I haven't done yet.
With the dollar dropping I thought it would be good to prepay, so I've looked at uscarhire.com. The website is exactly the same as yescarhire that folded during our last trip. Even the silver and gold packages are the same. I cant see any difference. Despite us having a good experience with them, knowing what happened to all those others this makes me even more nervous. Does anyone know how long they have been around? The rate I have with National is cheaper than the one I'm getting with uscarhire.com but of course I can't prepay that and I still haven't fixed the residency thing.

you cant prepay but you could put the equivalent money on a pre paid travel visa then the money is already changed and you still have it. We used the Amex one got it form the post office there were no fees.
The other thing is i asked them to take our money straight away and they got National to do that they didn't actually charge our card National did so they must pay them a commission.
I have just realised i wrote we used usacarhire but we actually used uscarhire different company sorry for that this is there web for the ones i meant www.uscarhire.co.uk and we were charged in pounds not $US

 

[Princessbec]

I was having similar trouble with National in that there were no cars available for Australians but there was for US citizens for the dates I wanted. I have found a solution - and a much better rate by clicking through on the link provided at Mousesavers found here: http://www.mousesavers.com/national.html Instead of taking you direct to the national homepage it prefills the IATA # and goes through to https://www.nationalcar.com/index.do?action=resRentalInfo.do&iataNumber=06797405 From what I can work out Mousesavers is listed as the travel agent referral for the booking and probably receives some sort of commission.

Best bit is I can say I'm from Australia so have all the right insurances included but also save close to 65%!

Hope that helps.

 

[Princessbec]

Actually for more of a comparison I quoted the same rental and inclusions (car seats, insurances) but as a US resident without using Mousesavers and the price went from $670 to $2140.

Needless to say I have now reserved at the $670 price although will continue to check to see if the price changes.

I'm sure I read somewhere that the rate is only valid if you can show ID that matches the country of origin stated when booked. Not a risk I would be willing to take.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

I was having similar trouble with National in that there were no cars available for Australians but there was for US citizens for the dates I wanted. I have found a solution - and a much better rate by clicking through on the link provided at Mousesavers found here: http://www.mousesavers.com/national.html Instead of taking you direct to the national homepage it prefills the IATA # and goes through to https://www.nationalcar.com/index.do?action=resRentalInfo.do&iataNumber=06797405 From what I can work out Mousesavers is listed as the travel agent referral for the booking and probably receives some sort of commission.

Best bit is I can say I'm from Australia so have all the right insurances included but also save close to 65%!

Hope that helps.

Thanks for that. I will have a look and see how I go. The quote I have from National has the right insurances included but I dont want to chance getting there and them saying its not valid because I said I was from the US.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

Thankyou. I now have a booking that says I'm from Australia. That worked perfectly and was a similar price to the booking I had with the same insurance inclusions. Its so much cheaper than any quote I've received from anyone else. The closest I got was with uscarhire.co.uk but even that was $400 more for the same duration. Hertz, Avis etc were more that $1100 more. I feel much better now. Thanks Again.

 

[Princessbec]

Thankyou. I now have a booking that says I'm from Australia. That worked perfectly and was a similar price to the booking I had with the same insurance inclusions. Its so much cheaper than any quote I've received from anyone else. The closest I got was with uscarhire.co.uk but even that was $400 more for the same duration. Hertz, Avis etc were more that $1100 more. I feel much better now. Thanks Again.

So glad it worked for you too.

 

[Sugarglider]

alamo and national are known for dropping their price as the date gets closer - and the drop can be substantial in the last two weeks - look at their Hot Deals.
However I have gone with Traveljigsaw this time. $380AUD for the smallest car, 11 days, with all insurance and sat nav. late oct/early nov. The usacarhire.co.uk site was the same price without the sat nav. All the US sites were at least $100 more.