Car Rental

[nick1978]

Well im from the UK but live in Florida now and thought i would give you my advice from all the years i used to travel on vacation. If my memory serves me you can do a kerbside check in with Alamo, the only other car rental company which does it is Hertz but you have to be a member of their number 1 club

 

[gavvy]

Well I will Give it a go, I suppose the worst they will do is send me back to the rental counter with a red face!
Getting a FL Driving Licence seems a good idea, but Ive heard you have to queue all day to get one, which has kind of put me off!

 

[Hilary]

We rented with Alamo when we visited last month.

I sent off our details in advance, but we still went to the Alamo counter with everyone else. At the counter, the check-in was a bit quicker than normal because the main details were already on the system, so it was worth doing, even though it would have been nice to have avoided the line altogether!

On the insurance thing - we used to do the rental separately and use an annual US rental car policy for the insurance. However, recently, I've found it such a pain trying to get the car rental without insurance that I've done the inclusive rental and been surprised at the prices - I'm not convinced we'd have saved much / anything if we'd done the rental and insurance separately (although the annual policy is good if you go as often as Sam! )

 

[gavvy]

Hilary
How big was the Alamo line when you arrived, Ive heard it can be very long!

Im Flying with Virgin and I have been told a BA flight lands about 30 mins before my flight, and that BA holidays use ALamo for all their holidaymakers, so I am keen to try and avoid that line anyway I can LOL

 

[Hilary]

Hilary
How big was the Alamo line when you arrived, Ive heard it can be very long!

We were one of the last ones through immigration (sitting at the back of the plane), and didn't rush through baggage, etc. When we arrived at the rental desks there wasn't much of a line at all (we were probably about the third family waiting), but I did notice the line suddenly grew a lot by the time we left the counter to go and get the car.

We were on the 12:30 Virgin flight from Gatwick and I admit I'd felt quite smug about being with Alamo as I thought most of the Virgin passengers would be with Dollar. I felt a bit cheated when I saw no line at all at the Dollar desks! That'll teach me for trying to be clever

 

[Chris and Pooh]

I have purchased the policy from insurance4carhire this year, has anyone had any experences of useing it with Alamo, I have booked a car with the wal mart discount, and have registered my details with Alamo so I dont have to visit the rental counter, Im hoping all this will go off smoothy!

I mentioned in an earlier post that I cannot get the web page up. Does anyone else have problems?
I also now have a price with insurance for 14 days in May for a seven seater for £319. How does this compare with getting your own insurance and then renting?

 

[gavvy]

I just checked and am having no probs getting up the link

this is my bookmark try this

http://insurance4carhire.com/index.asp?curID=1&langID=1&refID=100&pID=79&q=40#40

 

[gavvy]

I juist checked 2 weeks in may on alamo (7-21st) and a 7 seater is coming up as £249, plus the £100 for the cost of the insurance so is slighty more expensive.
This is useing the walmart code off mousesavers

However if you plan to go again within a year then you wont need to pay for anymore insuance, suppose it depends on your circumstances.

How many people are there as you can hire a SUV that seats 4 ad and a child for £130 plus the insurance - depends on what you need and how much luggage you have!

 

[Chris and Pooh]

For info, if there is anyone staying on a Disney resort, were they aware of a complimentary facility they offer called Magical Express.
You are picked up Orlando airport and taken to your resort, and the return journey if you wish, allowing you to pick your Alamo rental from the Swan and Dolphin or the Walt Disney Car Care Centre at your leisure, even the next day saving a days rental.

 

[Chris and Pooh]

I juist checked 2 weeks in may on alamo (7-21st) and a 7 seater is coming up as £249, plus the £100 for the cost of the insurance so is slighty more expensive.
This is useing the walmart code off mousesavers

However if you plan to go again within a year then you wont need to pay for anymore insuance, suppose it depends on your circumstances.

How many people are there as you can hire a SUV that seats 4 ad and a child for £130 plus the insurance - depends on what you need and how much luggage you have!

There are five of us all adults. The quote however does not allow multi users or a tank of petrol the cost for that would be £340.50.

Still cant get the insurance link on explorer I will try Netscape

 

[penlanspice]

It's only really worth the cost of buying insurance separate if you will be taking more than one trip in the year you buy it, otherwise you don't really save.

 

[martina857]

If your coming out to Orlando and wanting car hire may i suggest a company you may wish to compare your quotes with.... They are called Holiday autos/Autos abroad and their details can be found in the yellow pages or local sunday press. When i used to vacation here i paid 129 pounds a week for a small size car, the smallest they have comparable to a peugeot 106 and that included all insurance, however althought thats what they sell you the company you pick up from which was always Dollar rent a car never have a car that small, i think the smallest i had was a chevy cavalier 2 door which was the same size as a BMW 3 series coupe.

Worth checking out. to upgrade to a convertible i think i paid an additional @250 dollars locally for 2 weeks.

Check it out but make sure when you call for a quote tell them you have used them before and you get an additional discount

AUTO's ABROAD went bust 2 years ago owing 100's of thousands and leaving a huge amount of people to pay through the nose at the rental firm desk when their voucher was not valid. I would ALWAYs advise against finding the cheapest car hire possible and rent through an agent who has some kind of bonding in place like ATOL.

M

 

[gavvy]

There are five of us all adults. The quote however does not allow multi users or a tank of petrol the cost for that would be £340.50.

Still cant get the insurance link on explorer I will try Netscape

I used the wal mart dis code and that includes unlinited drivers, but petrol is extra, probably another £25 or so.
Have a play around on alamo.com The walmart corp idis 430710 and rate code BY see if you can find something for your dates!

I suppose it all depends on if your going to go back within a year, In my case useing the seperate insurance saved me nearly £100 over the cheapest full quote I could find for a SUV, plus I am planning on going back again later this year

I am not sure why you cant get the link to work, have you tried emptying your cashe or something! ( I aint very technical! )

 

[Fantasia Sam]

I was just looking at Mini-vans for a friend of mine and it worked out he saved over $200 getting the insurance separately to the code.

I'll try that link that you gave Gavvy to check in at Alamo direct.
I also tried a number of other online places and the next cheapest I found was Orbitz.com for car hire - I can tell you that I researched over a hundred different rates and codes that kept everything above level.

I also feel more comfortable about actually having that I am a UK resident on my details with Alamo because my car insurance does not cover you if you have wrong details on your rental agreement.

 

[disneyholic family]

I used the code from Simon's book when i rented a mini-van from Alamo last summer. It included all insurance, which was a great deal as compared to all of the other quotes i received (from Alamo and the other car hire companies i checked). By the way, to use the code you have to indicate that you're a resident of the UK or the code won't work. Of course i'm not a resident of the UK, but it wasn't a problem when i picked up the car (and i've used that code at least 4 times without problem).

And the minivan we ended up picking was fantastic - individual bucket seats for each passenger and tons and tons and tons of luggage space. The first time we didn't have to worry about all of our luggage.