Tampa airport rental cars??

[TZMOM]

I think instead of taking my DS to Tampa Skatepark over Pres. Day weekend 2006 (for his 16th b'day) - I'll take him during "Jersey Week" this year - Wednesday, November 9 to Sunday, November 13, 2005. Hopefully little less people travelling & nicer weather in Tampa. . . .

Does anyone have any "plugs" for a rental company at that airport? I've looked at Avis, Budget, Dollar & Nat'l and all are relatively close in price. Any preferences from anyone?

Thanks for your help!!

Jane

 

[OntFamily]

Avis, Budget & Dollar are in-terminal. To use National, you'll have to take a shuttle bus.

 

[TZMOM]

Thanks for the help!!

Jane

 

[gw_lit]

Avis, Budget & Dollar are in-terminal. To use National, you'll have to take a shuttle bus.

If you get a much better deal with National, I wouldn't let having to take a shuttle bus bother you. The National lot is on the way out of the airport, you'd drive by it with any rental car that you got in terminal, so at most it will add 10-15 minutes to getting out of the airport (especially if you're using Emerald Aisle). I very rarely have to wait more than a few minutes for a shuttle to the lot.

I travel to Tampa quite frequently for business and almost always rent from National.

 

[dpratt68]

I am flying into Tampa in february and was wondering how to get the best deal on a rental???? What do you suggest for finding the best codes? Can more than one code be used? HELP!!!

 

[saffymom]

I would NOT recommend Budget. We used them on our Feb trip because we got a good deal, and I wished we would have just spent the extra money and rented with someone else.
When we got to the rental car desks, no one had a line EXCEPT Budget! DH waited in line for over 45 minutes, only to be told that they had no cars to give us and that it would be another 30-45 minutes before one was available.
Anyway, when we finally got our car it had a big scratch on it that wasn't noted on the paperwork. So we had to wait another fifteen minutes or so until they could find someone to inspect the car (I didn't want to return it and get charged for the damage). It started our trip off on sort of a bad note, and I never will rent from them again!

 

[riu girl]

12/06 we will be staying near Sarasota for 2 weeks. I currently have 4 different car rentals depending on what airport we end up flying in/out of.
For TPA I used all of the available codes on the mousesavers.com site and the least expensive rate I could find for TPA was with Thrifty using the WMRT discount code. The price works out to be $356 US total for 2 weeks (Dec 17-31) for an intermediate car.

fyi, I found the prices to be much less for
1. MCO ($211 total for two weeks) National using the priceless code and the $20 ent. coupon, economy car
2. flying in to MCO, out of TPA ($218 total for two weeks) National, priceless code and $20 ent. coupon, economy car
3. flying in/out of Sarasota ($311 total for two weeks), Dollar, no code. economy car

Does anyone think that these rates are pretty good, or should I keep looking???? It took me hours to find these since I was looking at so many agencies/airports.

Good luck with finding a good rate.
Suzy V.

 

[UMTerp]

Interesting... we just returned from a Spring Break trip to Tampa and had a good experience with Budget. No line, in and out quickly. Maybe because we arrived at night? Return was easy - just write down the mileage and fuel level and take it to the office - again no line, in and out quickly. I got a minivan with the discount on their website - best deal I could find for the 5 days. I would use them again.

UMTerp

 

[saffymom]

Maybe arriving mid day was part of our problem, but to be out of cars is just crazy! And the guy at the desk was really rude about it too! And when he asked where we were going (Disney) and saw DS who was 20 months at the time, he asked "Isn't he too young to spend that much money on?". GRRR!!
I don't know, maybe I just got them on a bad day? If you can get them cheaper than anyone else, then maybe it's worth it. Like I said, it just started the vacation out on a bad note. But I would agree that returning the car was a breeze. Just walked up, handed them the keys, gave them the mileage and we were done.