Car Rental

What is the best car rental while in Las Vegas?

 

Generally the best is where ever you get the best price. We prefer to rent from the major players; Alamo, Hertz, national, Enterprise, etc. There was a time that Dollar had consistently the best prices, but for the last several trips we've gotten better pricing and service through Alamo. For our upcoming trip I was able to confirm an acceptable rate through Alamo using discount codes through Costco.

 

I pretty much always go by price. And for us going through Costco has almost always yielded the best price. Last week we rented from Enterprise via Costco. If you rent frequently it may pay toto join a club, you can get some good frequent renter deals. I usually only rent 2-3 maybe 4 times a year.

I believe some rental companies don't allow you to take the car out of state, which usually isn't an issue but we drove to Death Valley so we had to be sure about that.

Virtually every company will have "horror stories" associated with it.

 

I usually book through the corporate travel office. (We can use them for personal trips as well.) Lately their best prices have been via Enterprise. For a long time it was Advantage. I've never had any issues with those two.

I did have a very hard-sell upsell attempt at Dollar once.

 

Unfortunately there is one sales clerk at Dollar at the rental facility that is very aggressive to upsell. Makes your processing even a longer and a more trying thing. If I rent from Dollar I always avoid that guy and will let others go to him instead. All the times I did this I usually was out the door and out of the lot long before they were done with him.

This guy takes no for an answer, he even asked me what my insurance policy was and dollar amounts and deductibles were and gave me recommendations (even though I didn't ask) on what I should have on my insurance policy. Then he tried to sell me more insurance, trying to scare me that if I got in an accident I would have to pay a lot if I didn't take the extra insurance. It was such an unpleasant experience that I avoid Dollar and rent from Thrifty (their sister company) instead. Usually rates for Dollar and Thrifty are the same.

 

Not sure what you mean by best car rental. Do you mean cheapest? less hassle? etc. etc.

Usually the best rates come from the cut rate companies like payless, EZ rent a car, Fox, advantage, firefly and Sixt. They aren't perfect though, Fox and Sixt you have to catch a secondary shuttle to their location (Sixt is across the street from the rental facility so may be faster to just walk but still a pain to walk your luggage there). Check tripadvisor reviews on Fox, they aren't very positive, long waits, etc. so I usually avoid that agency (but others have no problem renting from Fox). Payless and EZ are in the rental facility but you sometimes get a hard sell or have extra charges tacked onto your bill or the rental line is very long and slow. They also have a limited car supply so you may have to wait for your car if it wasn't returned by the previous renters. If you don't like your car they really don't have any extra cars available (you're pretty much stuck with the car they give you IMHO). I rented from both before with no problems but others give horror stories. I also rented from Advantage before with no problems (I always check my bill for extra charges, esp is he price doesn't match my reservation quote).

I usually rent from the major rental agencies because they usually have more car selection, sometimes give free upgrades if cars aren't available but they also provide decent service. Lately I have found the Costco rentals to be cheap and almost comparable to the cut rate agencies (you need to be a Costco member).

And I always check regularly (at least daily) on rentals. I usually can get reduced rates on cars that are comparable to the cut rate agencies.

 

I find the "best" rental companies are the ones that allow you to bypass the counter and go out and get your car to avoid the hard upsells, plus it speeds up the process. My issue is, I'd rather spend less on the rental and keep looking for lower rates and also looking at Hotwire and Priceline to cut that rate even more, but I loose the luxury of bypassing the counter.

It, more of less, comes down to what is important to you as most of the big boys all have relatively low mileage, clean cars and are pretty much all the same except price.

 

I've rented from five companies and usually base my decision on price, however I've always received very good service with E-Z. Very competitive rates, short lines both at check-out and return and if they don't have the class of car I've reserved they have upgraded at no additional cost.

 

I love playing the rental game.

I booked my initial reservation today for our August trip($216 all in for 9 days for a full size thru Thrifty-much cheaper than a compact) which I have probably a ZERO % chance of keeping.

I usually book and rebook about 10-12 times before I get my bottom line price.

Between Budget, Thrifty/Dollar and Alamo I can usually get a pretty low price Last year a 9+ day rental cost $150ish all in for a compact car)

A new entry for me will be Costco travel(now that I am a Costco member). This is before I play around with Hotwire/Priceline.

The real prices usually come out about 3-4 weeks before the rental date.

Let the games begin !!!!