National Counter or Alamo Kiosk

[TheMick424]

In your experience, which is faster: the National Counter service or Alamo Kiosk? I'm an Emerald Club member, but I'm using a discount coupon from BJ's, which seems to default me to Counter service for some reason. I also have an Alamo reservation, but it is slightly more money. What would you do? We'll be travelling with two children under the age of 4, so I would like the process to be as quick as possible. TIA!

 

[MinnieForMe]

Hi:
My guess would be Alamo. Last year, Alamo let me check in from my home computer and skip the kiosk all together at MCO. It was wonderful!

I will say that National has the better minvans or at least ones with DVD players and Alamo last year did not.

 

[francie57]

You should be able to use the kiosk. We had a bjs coupon in Aug. and used the kiosk without any trouble. They didn't even ask for the coupon when we drove up to the check-out gate. We entered all our information on the computer before we left for MCO and were done at the kiosk in less than 10 min. We walked across the street, got the car and then went to the gate and all we had to do was show our licenses since we had two drivers on the car. Unless things have changed, we plan on doing the same thing this coming Aug. on our annual trip.

 

[sympatico]

National has a $30. per week ecoupon that would let you walk right to your car and skip the counter. ?? We're Emerald Club and I used it, nothing to print off.

 

[dioxide45]

Hi:
My guess would be Alamo. Last year, Alamo let me check in from my home computer and skip the kiosk all together at MCO. It was wonderful!

I will say that National has the better minvans or at least ones with DVD players and Alamo last year did not.

Alamo and National use the same cars at MCO, so how is this possible? Unless it is Emerald Isle.

The OP could just use the National Kiosk. Anytime when using a coupon code Alamo and National won't let you check in on-line; however, this limitation doesn't extend to checking in at the kiosk.

 

[TheMick424]

Thanks, everyone for the advice. I'm just trying to maximize my discount as well as minimize the amount of time I have to spend checking out.

I'm an Emerald Club member, so I was hoping to bypass the counter and go straight to the garage. However, I also have a BJ's membership and a Costco membership, so I have access to those contract IDs and coupons. I have a BJ's coupon for a double upgrade at National, which is what I was hoping to use to maximize the discount (especially if they are pulling from the same fleet). However, it doesn't look like I can bypass the counter if I use a coupon. It sounds like I might be able to use the National kiosk though, huh? So confused...

 

[dioxide45]

Thanks, everyone for the advice. I'm just trying to maximize my discount as well as minimize the amount of time I have to spend checking out.

I'm an Emerald Club member, so I was hoping to bypass the counter and go straight to the garage. However, I also have a BJ's membership and a Costco membership, so I have access to those contract IDs and coupons. I have a BJ's coupon for a double upgrade at National, which is what I was hoping to use to maximize the discount (especially if they are pulling from the same fleet). However, it doesn't look like I can bypass the counter if I use a coupon. It sounds like I might be able to use the National kiosk though, huh? So confused...

You should be able to bypass the counter and use the kiosk to check in with a rate booked using a coupon. Nothing to be confused about.

 

[webworm]

You can use the Kiosk with Alamo or National with a coupon. I have done it many times without any problems.