Hawaii Rental Cars

[DVCTigger]

DH and I are headed to Hawaii for our 25th anniversary and 1st Hawaiian vacation in Aug '14. We will be spending a week on the Big Island followed by eight nights at Aulani!! We are beginning our search for rental cars and were hoping to get some insight on good deals on the islands! Any help would be appreciated. TIA

 

[bcuinohio]

I initially booked a car through this place:
http://www.discounthawaiicarrental.com/index.shtml They had better rates than I could find directly through the major rental agencies.

I ended up finding a better rate though Costco's travel website. http://www.costcotravel.com/

 

[lurkernj]

We're going to Maui end of June and I have been looking for the past few weeks. General statistics say that this is pretty early and a lot of discounts come out 2-3 months prior to your dates (this is our 3rd trip, and this does seem to ring true).

With that in mind, I did just book a convertible through Alamo for 10 days at a cost of $574. That's high in my opinion, but I've been seeing them in the $700 range. I do believe it will go down below $500, so I will just keep looking and cancel when I get it cheaper, but for now, there is peace of mind that at least I have the car I want for a somewhat reasonable price.

I used the visa code AD7394SDJ, and signed up for their insiders program which gives an additional 10% and allows a second driver for free. I found this to be cheaper than costco, discounthawaiicarrental, and any other site I've checked recently.

If you haven't found tripadvisor dot com yet, that is an invaluable site for planning my hawaii trips, lots of great advice on there

 

[SandyinMonterey]

We went to Aulani in February 2013 and 2014. If I recall correctly with our last trip, a one week rental car from Avis cost about $400 including taxes and everything. I thought that was a little high but it was the best I could do/find. Finding a car rental is just like finding airfare, just keep looking and trolling the websites. When you find a price you're comfortable with, jump it. If you find something you like, you can always book it but know their policy because if you find something else cheaper down the road you can always re-book. I think in general, everything just costs more in Hawaii. Happy 25th Anniversary and have a wonderful trip.