Hawaii Car Rental Prices To Soar
If our recent warning about Hawaii car rental availability and costs wasn’t bad enough, this is sure to add insult to injury at a most inopportune time.
New facility fee.
A facility charge of $4.50/day for all Hawaii airport car rentals is expected to go into effect starting September 1. The current charge is $1/day. The fee is being proposed as a way of improving Hawaii’s aging car rental facility infrastructure.
The only way to avoid the charge is to rent off-airport. Unfortunately, in Hawaii, that isn’t all that easy or convenient. At Honolulu Airport however, it is possible to rent from two companies which are nearby, but off-airport. They are Alamo and Thrifty.
Neighbor islands.
On the neighbor islands, it is more unclear as to how the charge will be applied. At Kona for example, all of the car rentals are a distance from the airport, but may still be technically considered on-airport. At Hilo, all car rentals are on the Airport Road loop, but some are on-airport while others are not. At Lihue, Thrifty and Alamo/National are clearly off-airport.
Fee likely unavoidable.
Unless current legislative plans change, off-airport locations will not be subject to the fee. At other airports that have implemented similar fees, like Seattle for example, it is not possible for off-airport car rental locations to provide pick-up and drop-off at the airport. I suspect that before it is all said and done, that will be Hawaii’s implementation plan as well. Therefore, simply prepare to pay $4.50/day.
What are your thoughts?
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I’m so annyed to read this. Soon the added on fees in Hawaii for car rental will exceed the actual per day price. I probably will continue to pay for a car though. I drive all over Oahu when I’m there and it’s something I really enjoy. I would miss the freedom of going where I want to. I was there in January and I’m looking forward to next year already. You’ve talked about the lower number of tourists, so when you think about that it seems like a bad choice for the rental car companies to charge more. I did find the per day parking rate at one of the hotels you recommended was a little lower this past trip. With your free parking suggestions, maybe we can save enough on that to make up for the extra $4.50/day the rental companies charge. (If you could see me now, you would see I’m smiling ironically over that last sentence.) Aloha
I already have my rentals reserved for after the Sept. First date, so how will that work? I already have the complete price?
Hi Julie,
Since it will be a government imposed fee, I’d assume it will be added to your current price.
Aloha, Jeff
Annoying! I realize that facility improvements cost money. However, these charges seem excessive, especially since the benefits of new facilities aren’t proportional to the number of days I rent a car. In other words, why is the fee a per-day fee when my use of the old (and at some point improved) facilities is unrelated to the length of the rental?
I’ll be back in Oahu in May, and I plan to not rent a car for the week. The hotel parking fees are such that it’s more efficient to rent a car for a day in Waikiki when I actually want to go somewhere instead of keeping one around the entire week.
I am not sure that ’soar’ is quite the word to use to describe a hike of $3 a day. It is definitely a spike in rates though and they are bad enough.
I have already been shopping for our Big Island rental for January 2011 and found a great Alamo deal. It just won’t be quite as good now – it will be approximately $30 higher.
All the more reason to really shop for rates as soon as you know you there is even a remote possibility of a trip. If our trip does not materialize – we can always cancel the reservation.
As with everything (of course, there is NO inflation :0) the rates just keep going up, up and away…………..
AHHHHH another tax? I know everything is going up, but is Hawaii trying to tax their way out of the tourism business. We are blessed enough to go every year, but it sure is starting to add up…….
All the more reason to really shop for rates as soon as you know you there is even a remote possibility of a trip. If our trip does not materialize – we can always cancel the reservation.
Just an afterthought to my previous post.
Our sons are thinking of coming with us to Hawaii in January. I thought I would check out a rental for them – since they will not want to spend all their time with us :0)
We managed to snag a convertible for a week for $249 last February for our January 2011 week. But now the rates have DOUBLED! Also, the airfares are DOUBLE what we paid in 2009 or on any of our past trips.
Sadly, if the air fares stay up and the car rental rates stay in the stratosphere – we will just cancel our 2011 trip and snag a deal to an AI in Mexico! We can do that for not much more than the price of airfare to Hawaii!! That is very sad.
My husband and I are going to Hawaii for the first time this August, Honolulu only. We’ve heard that public transportation is excellent and that we don’t need to rent a car. We do want to take a drive around, though, so we would like to rent a car for a day or two. Would you advise that we reserve one now?
Are taxis readily available? Expensive?
Hi Curly,
Yes, I’d definitely reserve a car now. While taxis are readily available, they’ve become quite expensive. The bus system on Oahu works great for use within Honolulu and sometimes it’s less hassle than the traffic and parking.
Aloha,
Jeff
Just got back from a great stay at the Shearton Kauai. When we checked our rental car in at Avis we were charged an additional $4.33. We were told it was for posting our frequent flyer miles. The receipt shows \FTP SR$ 0.75DY\ plus the state tax. Is this another charge?
I believe that charge is quite standard and unrelated to Hawaii.
Aloha. Jeff
Car rental companies has been adding frequent flier mileage surcharges for years everywhere. It is not just a Hawaii charge.