679 thoughts on “Savings Guide: 2023 Hawaii Car Rentals”
JWu
We have our summer car reservations to OGG and HNL already made. Is there a chance the car rental companies won’t honor the reservations? If yes, what would our options be when we are at the rental company itself, luggage in hand?
Aloha, I checked for a rental car a few weeks ago and found the cost way high. Thought about it so may take a shuttle from airport to
Property and rent a few days instead of a week especially since we don’t use a car daily. Boh – great info
Thank you to the state for the investigation.
Mahalo
I just recently booked a rental car and the price was a month long rental for 2022 was within $200 of a price I paid for the same amount of time for 2020. I feel this is reasonable though I’m going to keep checking back for lower pricing. Airlines on the other hand I feel are price gouging as their prices have doubled. I know they had very tough times in 2020 but haven’t we all? I would love to get back to flying but I don’t feel this is the way what airlines are doing. Please maybe investigate the airlines.
This is the most absurd rental pricing I’ve ever seen in Hawaii or anywhere in the USA. I’m a visitor almost yearly since 1993 and this year the rentals are 400-500% higher than last years pricing. The years before, typical Mustang or keep covert has been $60-70 per day this year $250-300 Per Day. What the Hell people. Are you for real. Is this planned scarcity of available cars caused from civic leaders or just plan greed or a partnership of both. Is it possible that municipalities are trying to control their traffic now. Are you providing buses now to resort cores, have you released more taxi and limo/urber permits. Seems like 3 day old mahi mahi to me.
Yes we know that tourist and employee traffic in tourist towns is difficult to manage at peak hours and I’m sure some important people got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport or dinner reservation but that’s all part of planning your time. As a resident in a tourist town and a tourist in you town I believe this could be controlling powers compensating rental companies for less vehicles on the road.
If that’s not correct please explain.
Btw my ocean view May rental front and center to the ocean is less than the possible car rental this year. Might be a driver limo this year but that will impact day trips and daily spending to local businesses. Not very good for local economy.
Who’s should we blame for this mess Is your guess.
Mahala my friends.
I’ve been reading comments on FB where people renting with Turo in particular were getting their car rental reservation cancelled before they got here. Seems like some people renting through Turo saw an opportunity to gouge people/get a lot more money from someone else when the daily rates became extrenely high. There was even one local guy suggesting that people charge more than double to tourists because they could. Where’s the Aloha spirit in that?
I discovered Discount Hawaii Car Rental 10 or 12 years ago and it is the best resource for finding a car. We use them every time and have always been happy. They don’t require a deposit and you can check back to see if the rates have dropped as you get close to your trip. I have memberships with other car rental companies, but they never were able to match the great rates we got at DHCR (nor was Costco).
Aloha Diana, I too have used Discount Hawaiian for many trips and always got a great price. I checked on a purposed trip to Kauai for Aug.2 thru Aug.12 and the cheapest I could find was $1054 total. I read a posting that mentioned AUTOSLASH so I checked with them and AutoSlash which I had never heard of gave me a confirmed quote from HERTZ for a similar car for $679.53 total with no prepay and a free cancellation up to the time of rental.
You might check them out!
I think you’ll Thank me.
Thanks, I will definitely check them out. I hadn’t heard of Autoslash until this article. It’s good to know you had a successful experience. BTW, I would go back to Discount Hawaii 2-3 weeks before our trip and see if the rates have dropped from when I made my initial reservation—they often do, very significantly. That being said I never cancel a reservation until I have secured a new one. Enjoy your trip in August—we have to wait til May 2022.
Diana, when I started looking on Discount Hawai’i car rental in September 2020 for February 2021 I placed my initial rental for $384. I would check daily, hoping for lower, & sometime in late December I found the next larger car for $234, Chev. Malibu. I always comparative shop rental companies but since about 12 year’s ago I find Discount Hawai’i car rental to be the place to go. Make your checks daily. After I found my $234 deal the prices were near & over $400. Good searching.
While price gouging is illegal, this seems to be more an issue of supply and demand. Are available vehicles being held back to force people to pay higher prices, or are there just not enough vehicles to meet the demand? 10k fewer cars in the islands would seem to point to just not enough cars, and they can’t just be brought in from somewhere else on flatbeds or a train. One could forgive the rental companies for not wanting to maintain a year-around fleet to satisfy the 4-month peak demand. Would I want to pay so much for a rental car? No, but just like hotel rooms and airplane seats, there is a finite number of vehicles available, and companies are allowed to set the price to reflect the supply and demand equation.
A better question may be, “was the suddenly very high demand foreseeable?” Did the rental companies recognize that and decline to increase the Hawaii inventory to get higher prices (and irritate lots and lots of tourists, giving themselves a black eye), or was it more of a surprise that takes time to respond to given how long it takes to move a car from California to Hawaii? If rental companies get a better shipping rate because they move hundreds of cars at a time, they still probably pay $500/car from Long Beach to Honolulu for a vehicle that may arrive too late to do any good and then will sit idle, not generating any revenue but incurring expense for days at a time.
I agree it is a supply versus demand issue. The islands sent back a lot of their car rentals last year because there were no tourists. They just need to rebuild their inventory back up. No sane person would intentionally gouge customers unless they are sadistic and enjoy having angry customers.
We are spending 3 months on the BI next winter and the car I just reserved was not priced any higher than it was a month ago. I assume that means they anticipate inventory will be back to “normal” by February 2022.
Thanks for the info. It is too bad that rates have skyrocketed. I was planning a 3 week trip with my family and touring the island. Now we will be coming for 1 week and not renting a car. We will take a shuttle to our resort. This will definitely impact local businesses that are away from resorts since more people will choose not to rent cars at these prices.
I was shocked by the rates when I checked yesterday. The prices on Maui were about 136 for a 2 door Speck…tiniest cars.I thought there might be collusion. Why have two cars rented for $50 a day when you can rent one for more than twice the amount.
We have our summer car reservations to OGG and HNL already made. Is there a chance the car rental companies won’t honor the reservations? If yes, what would our options be when we are at the rental company itself, luggage in hand?
Aloha, I checked for a rental car a few weeks ago and found the cost way high. Thought about it so may take a shuttle from airport to
Property and rent a few days instead of a week especially since we don’t use a car daily. Boh – great info
Thank you to the state for the investigation.
Mahalo
Hi Marilyn.
Thanks. Keep checking back on car rentals. It could change.
Aloha.
I just recently booked a rental car and the price was a month long rental for 2022 was within $200 of a price I paid for the same amount of time for 2020. I feel this is reasonable though I’m going to keep checking back for lower pricing. Airlines on the other hand I feel are price gouging as their prices have doubled. I know they had very tough times in 2020 but haven’t we all? I would love to get back to flying but I don’t feel this is the way what airlines are doing. Please maybe investigate the airlines.
This is the most absurd rental pricing I’ve ever seen in Hawaii or anywhere in the USA. I’m a visitor almost yearly since 1993 and this year the rentals are 400-500% higher than last years pricing. The years before, typical Mustang or keep covert has been $60-70 per day this year $250-300 Per Day. What the Hell people. Are you for real. Is this planned scarcity of available cars caused from civic leaders or just plan greed or a partnership of both. Is it possible that municipalities are trying to control their traffic now. Are you providing buses now to resort cores, have you released more taxi and limo/urber permits. Seems like 3 day old mahi mahi to me.
Yes we know that tourist and employee traffic in tourist towns is difficult to manage at peak hours and I’m sure some important people got stuck in traffic on the way to the airport or dinner reservation but that’s all part of planning your time. As a resident in a tourist town and a tourist in you town I believe this could be controlling powers compensating rental companies for less vehicles on the road.
If that’s not correct please explain.
Btw my ocean view May rental front and center to the ocean is less than the possible car rental this year. Might be a driver limo this year but that will impact day trips and daily spending to local businesses. Not very good for local economy.
Who’s should we blame for this mess Is your guess.
Mahala my friends.
I’ve been reading comments on FB where people renting with Turo in particular were getting their car rental reservation cancelled before they got here. Seems like some people renting through Turo saw an opportunity to gouge people/get a lot more money from someone else when the daily rates became extrenely high. There was even one local guy suggesting that people charge more than double to tourists because they could. Where’s the Aloha spirit in that?
I discovered Discount Hawaii Car Rental 10 or 12 years ago and it is the best resource for finding a car. We use them every time and have always been happy. They don’t require a deposit and you can check back to see if the rates have dropped as you get close to your trip. I have memberships with other car rental companies, but they never were able to match the great rates we got at DHCR (nor was Costco).
Aloha Diana, I too have used Discount Hawaiian for many trips and always got a great price. I checked on a purposed trip to Kauai for Aug.2 thru Aug.12 and the cheapest I could find was $1054 total. I read a posting that mentioned AUTOSLASH so I checked with them and AutoSlash which I had never heard of gave me a confirmed quote from HERTZ for a similar car for $679.53 total with no prepay and a free cancellation up to the time of rental.
You might check them out!
I think you’ll Thank me.
Thanks, I will definitely check them out. I hadn’t heard of Autoslash until this article. It’s good to know you had a successful experience. BTW, I would go back to Discount Hawaii 2-3 weeks before our trip and see if the rates have dropped from when I made my initial reservation—they often do, very significantly. That being said I never cancel a reservation until I have secured a new one. Enjoy your trip in August—we have to wait til May 2022.
Diana, when I started looking on Discount Hawai’i car rental in September 2020 for February 2021 I placed my initial rental for $384. I would check daily, hoping for lower, & sometime in late December I found the next larger car for $234, Chev. Malibu. I always comparative shop rental companies but since about 12 year’s ago I find Discount Hawai’i car rental to be the place to go. Make your checks daily. After I found my $234 deal the prices were near & over $400. Good searching.
While price gouging is illegal, this seems to be more an issue of supply and demand. Are available vehicles being held back to force people to pay higher prices, or are there just not enough vehicles to meet the demand? 10k fewer cars in the islands would seem to point to just not enough cars, and they can’t just be brought in from somewhere else on flatbeds or a train. One could forgive the rental companies for not wanting to maintain a year-around fleet to satisfy the 4-month peak demand. Would I want to pay so much for a rental car? No, but just like hotel rooms and airplane seats, there is a finite number of vehicles available, and companies are allowed to set the price to reflect the supply and demand equation.
A better question may be, “was the suddenly very high demand foreseeable?” Did the rental companies recognize that and decline to increase the Hawaii inventory to get higher prices (and irritate lots and lots of tourists, giving themselves a black eye), or was it more of a surprise that takes time to respond to given how long it takes to move a car from California to Hawaii? If rental companies get a better shipping rate because they move hundreds of cars at a time, they still probably pay $500/car from Long Beach to Honolulu for a vehicle that may arrive too late to do any good and then will sit idle, not generating any revenue but incurring expense for days at a time.
It is not as simple as, “Hertz is screwing us”.
I agree it is a supply versus demand issue. The islands sent back a lot of their car rentals last year because there were no tourists. They just need to rebuild their inventory back up. No sane person would intentionally gouge customers unless they are sadistic and enjoy having angry customers.
We are spending 3 months on the BI next winter and the car I just reserved was not priced any higher than it was a month ago. I assume that means they anticipate inventory will be back to “normal” by February 2022.
Mahalo.
Hi Mary.
Thanks for the feedback on your 2022 car rental.
Aloha.
Would these inflated prices be considered price gouging during the pandemic which against the law?
Thanks for the info. It is too bad that rates have skyrocketed. I was planning a 3 week trip with my family and touring the island. Now we will be coming for 1 week and not renting a car. We will take a shuttle to our resort. This will definitely impact local businesses that are away from resorts since more people will choose not to rent cars at these prices.
I was shocked by the rates when I checked yesterday. The prices on Maui were about 136 for a 2 door Speck…tiniest cars.I thought there might be collusion. Why have two cars rented for $50 a day when you can rent one for more than twice the amount.