We rented a Budget car in Hawaii over the weekend and ended up with a dented Malibu that drove like a low-rider. Reviews show we are not alone. From long lines to worn-out cars and surprise charges, the rental experience in Hawaii is unpredictable at best.
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I have read recently that quite a few people have reserved ahead and when they get to counter there are No cars available. This is the Big Island I am talking about m. We have been very happy with Kihei Rent a Car on Maui.
You should use Turo, it is peer to peer so a local is receiving the money and I have never had a bad experience with Turo.
My recent rental had chunks of the tire missing… obviously for awhile too.
The rental car experience I’ve had for the past 6-7 years has been pretty good. I have a membership with Enterprise and they have never let me down. I booked a rental within 10 minutes because I have friends on Oahu, I called when we’re landing told my boy I had a 3 hour lay over and I’d rather hang for a few days then wait for my departure. By the time we’re getting off the plane, I had my reservation and was driving away from HNL all under 20 minutes. I use them on da big island as well. Hawaii is getting too greedy and might find itself biting the hand that feeds it.
Surprisingly my recent experience was the exact opposite of what you have discribed in you article. I belong to Hertz Plus Gold Rewards and only rent from Hertz. I do use a AAA discount code and that seems to get fair pricing. Additionally, I never seek out the lowest price “Manager Specials”. Because I’m afraid of what the might be!
While Renting at HNL and OGG this past June. We were happily surprised that we were upgraded to a Luxury Car each time. And using if Plus Gold Rewards your name is desplayed on a sign outside of the counter building and you just go the section and stall number already given for you. You car is waiting. At Maui we were directed to a specific section and you could pick any car from a row of about 6 or 7. Which was terrific because the first car (small SUV models) we tried had a trunk that didn’t fit all of our bags. So I just moved over to another model of the same brand of car and bags went in perfectly.
I’ve always rented from Hertz. Been a gold club member. Never had any problems renting in Hawaii or anywhere else, even rented in France. I think i pay more with Hertz, uneven wait, just walk out to the lot and take any of the several cars in my section. Except on Kuai. It was a specific car, a bit worn but not awful or unsafe. Im always sorry to hear of others flights and worry that some day it will be my turn. My next Hertz rental will be in Girona Spain. Hopefully all goes well there.
That’s about right! We rented a Charger and it was all banged up. I could roll the passenger windows down but it needed to be rolled up from the driver side. Driving down a mountain i prayed our breaks wouldn’t give out. The car shaked when Driving high speeds and the breaks were grinding and drew attention. All that aside we had a blast in Hawaii.
We had positive experiences last summer with Budget on one island and Alamo on another. We also reserved through Costco but have in the past used DiscountHawaiiCarRental.com with good results.
That said, I am not surprised at anything reported by others. If anyone hasn’t figured out or admitted it by now, time to wake up and smell the greed.
Rental car companies, resorts, and most businesses run on a profit-maximizing-above-all-else basis will lower costs while sneakily or openly raising prices or maintaining high ones where they can. They are trying to recoup pandemic losses or costs from every rental customer. Your only protection from this is corporate agreements/standards/pricing or powerful volume-building arrangements as through Costco.
It won’t get better, sad to say. Tech and profit demands while cutting staff will just make such low quality experiences more common. Unless we demand better!
I had opposing experiences on Kauai in late July.
I had booked a car on Turo far in advance. I was pleasantly surprised at how nice the car was. Turo can be a bit of a mixed bag, but this car was very nice with many upgrades the owner had applied.
Because of the tsunami warning, we ended up missing several activities. We had planned on returning the car and staying just at the resort for a few days before we left. The only thing available was from SIXT. I appreciate that they had the car, and the checkout was great. What was shocking to me was how bad the car had been treated. It was a 9 month old Jeep Compass, and that car had been through a lot. Fortunately SIXT had documented all of the damage and rental and return was fine. One or more renters must have really paid when they returned that Jeep.
Totally agree. Have a corporate agreement with National and when were out of cars, they charged me the National rate, but forced me to pick from the Enterprise lot (National and Enterprise is owned by the same parent company). The Enterprise quality was shame. Completely shame. The attitude of the staff on the Enterprise side was horrible. Everybody had attitude and the customer service was zero. Maybe on a scale from 1 to 10, maybe a 2 at best. Since time was at a premium, I took a car from the Enterprise side, but it was practically falling apart. Although there was a non-smoking policy, the only car that was left had a strong smoke smell and the staff made no attempt to clean or switch it out. The car was dirty and in poor condition. Wasted so much time coming back to switch it out with a National branded car, but there was no price adjustment and zero customer service. Nobody really cared about the rental car experience and it was practically customer, self-service.