Car Rental Tips

Get Me To Maui now shows you how use car rental tips to get cheap rental cars. How cheap it is hard to tell what kind of discount car rental you can manages to get. I have been very lucky in that I have always saved close to 50% off advertised rates. These car rental savings can be received from any of the major rental companies and no one company comes out the winner over all. The steps reviewed here should be used with our vacation planner to get the most use out of it. The steps work for any location and any rental company

Download Maui Vacation Planner

• Decide on which type of rental you need
• Start searching for rates
• Get specials on Maui car rentals delivered to your email from every car rental company
• Look into secondary companies for discounts
• Discounts from other possible sources
• Extras, are they needed???
• Insurance needs
• Reserve car and never put down deposit
• Record all reservation info
• Get confirmation of desired reservation
• When to start

So how will you can use these car rental tips?

Download our planner and see the section on transportation.

To See Other Pages in this Series click here

Quick Check in

Rental car companies want to make the process as easy as possible by offering quick check-in services. Convenience does come at a cost and will not be cheap car rental. On a Maui vacation a car rental should not be a race, relax your on vacation. I have never stayed in line at any Maui car rental company more than fifteen minutes to get my car, these companies rock, compared to the ones on the mainland.

Which type of rental should I get?

One of the most important car rental tips is, rent what you need. You are on vacation and only need the car for transportation. The type of car you rent plays a big factor in the cost. You will either get a cheap car rental or an expensive rental. Don't get caught up impressing people you don't know. Convertibles are great, but do cost slightly more. The roads are tight, and parking spaces are small. Midsize cars or small cars will get you around Maui perfectly. To get an idea of rental cost go to the next paragraph and read up on the search pattern to use to save up to 50% on a car rental.

Start Searching

To get started searching for a cheap car rental look at what search sites do. There are the vendor sites like Dollar, or Avis, and then there are search engines like Kayak that search multiple vendor sites. Each type of is very important to getting the lowest cost on a car rental.

Start with the vendor sites first. Use the links below or go straight into the site from your browser. Once there search for the type of car you want by the dates you are looking for. Write down a few of them. Now this is important; Join the email notification for specials, you can cancel out after your trip. You will start to receive special deals. Open and check each offer out for the time frame you will need it. As your search dates get closer you will notice more offers.

Now for the search engines like Kayak, these sites will search many sites for deals as you allow. This is good to see a broad quick look for the rates being offered. On the bottom of your search form you will see additional sites that Kayak is asking for you to check. On your first search check all of them until you start to narrow down your choices. Record in your planner the deals that look best to you and which vendor is offering them. After these searches you now have a good base of knowledge to make a good decision on. The specials should start to arrive in your e-mail after one week of being on the list.

Specials Delivered to your door

When the email specials start to arrive in you inbox, scan over them and record only the deals that are better than the recorded deals in your planner. You will be surprised at how accurate the deals get to matching what you want, since the sites now know what you searched for. It will seem that the closer you get to your travel date the better your deal will get. If you see a deal that is perfect put in a reservation now. Another important car rental tip is, Do Not send any money or supply any credit card numbers. They are never needed for reservations. If you get a better deal than one you reserved be sure to cancel your reservations you do not want and sometimes sending a thank-you email to them will get you a better offer back.

Secondary searches

What I mean by a secondary search is searching on the web for phrases about the exact car you want to rent. We have what the major companies rent now we will look for the secondary or small business owner sites. These usually will find a steal of a deal at the same major rental companies you searched for. Search for a phrase like "Maui Cheap Car Rental" and you should get some of the smaller rental companies. Cheap car rentals can be had by renting from companies not associated with the airports, in Maui as well as most airport a daily charge is added to every rental for a fee to the airport. This fee ranges from a few dollars up to $15.00 per day.

Discounts

Besides car rental tips, Get Me To Maui also has a Hawaii discount page that has many ways to save money on your Maui vacation. It is here at Maui Vacation Discounts. On this page you can see various discount cards and clubs for Maui and the State of Hawaii.
If you belong to Costco, BJ's, Sam's club or any other major warehouse store they offer some kind of discounts. For any coupon or discount code you can find, use it in your searches after you have done it with out the code entered, just checking to see the difference. There are discount codes available on the internet, some work and some don't, if you have the time give it a try.

Extras Extras Extras

This car rental tips is especially true for Maui. Extras for your use during the rentals include GPS systems. I have never needed a GPS on Maui. you can not get lost, since you can pretty much tell where you are at any time. A Map and a road sign are all you need. Do not fall for the GPS, it will probably distract you even more and might cause you to have an accident. Just say NO.
Some extras like child seat are a must be sure to get a written installation and use guide with your child seat rental. The seat is supposed to be sterilized between uses, check, check, check. Do not use any child restraints that seems to be worn or incomplete. If rental company can not secure you a perfect child seat go to number two on your planner list call them and see if they can honor your previous reservation which they will if possible then go rent the car. Get the name of the person helping you and the managers name. Then e-mail the complaint and your actions into the corporate office and see what they say as a response. You can let me know too.

Insurance

You need it, do not think you may get lucky. See Our page on Maui Car Rental Insurance here Maui Car Rental Tips Insurance Guide. This page covers all you need to keep you and your family covered. See the Insurance check off on your planner. One less thing to worry your mind on Maui.

Your Reservation

You have search hard, and your fingers hurt, eyes are blurry, and your head aches. Good, means you saved money. Time to decide and choose the winner from your list of possible choices. You have searched, searched with discounts, coupons, secondary searches, and now you are ready to decide on your car. Make 3 reservations the best cheap car rentals you could find. There will be no charge to do these reservations just keep the best three matches for you.

Record the reservations

Write them into your planner page under transportation. Keep this page in your Maui folder so it is ready when your plane touches down. Why keep three reservations? If for any reason you do not feel the first one is everything you wanted, you have option B and C.

Confirm

Email, or call and confirm your top three reservations. Email or call and cancel all other reservations explaining why they lost the reservation. This is the right thing to do. On the day before you leave cancel the last two by calling the 800 numbers in the planner you wrote down. Ask if they have any last minute specials opening the door for them to save face and make you an offer, if not politely thank them and hang up.

When To Start

When to start looking for a cheap car rental? Another important car rental tips, As soon as you think you are going to Maui. Even if you do not go, you will know how to get the best deal you can on a rental car. Brag about your savings and tell your friends how you did it, with the help of Get Me TO Maui's car rental tips. The longer you are on the rental car company's email list the more offers you will get to decide on. Now pat yourself on the back and say I saved myself XXXX dollars.

After you go please contact me and let me know how Maui was for you.