# Any new Hawaii car rental discounts?



## DaveNV (Aug 30, 2014)

We're heading to Maui and Kauai in a few weeks.  I already have cars reserved for both islands, at the best rates I've been able to find. Currently reserved with Costco, (better price than DHCR could do), but I'm always up for a smokin' deal on a mid-size or larger rental car.  Do you know of anything special I could use?

Thanks!

Dave


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## rickandcindy23 (Aug 30, 2014)

You didn't offer specific dates, but I just checked Chase's Ultimate Rewards Portal for 9/13-9/20 Maui car rental.  Intermediate is $165 all in for a full week.  Kauai is $20 cheaper for the same dates.  

I have gotten almost every car through the Chase portal in the last year.  The deals are unbeatable, and I used to be a diehard for Costco.  No more.


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## DaveNV (Aug 30, 2014)

Thanks, Cindy. I need to look into this Chase Ultimate Rewards Portal. I know you've mentioned it before. I'm always looking for a way to squeeze a few dollars off something like rental cars. I don't need another credit card, but a deal's a deal, right? 

And you're right - I forgot to mention specifics. Whoops.   Maui for 9/13-20, Kauai 9/20 to 27. 

I just checked Costco, and they show an intermediate for those dates on Maui for $155. Their rates for Kauai are higher than that.

Thanks for checking!

Dave


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## rickandcindy23 (Aug 30, 2014)

The Chase Ink Bold card has 50K bonus points with a minimum spend.  The card gets us 5X points for purchases at office supply stores, including gift cards they sell.  So everything you buy at Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, it's 5X.  The only thing I buy is gift cards.  

Another great benefit is 5X points on cell phone, internet, home phone, cable TV/ satellite, and those add up.  We get 3,000 points per month because we have all of those things, which we charge.

Wyndham MF's and most of our other MF's (like Marriott and WorldMark and Shell, etc) get 2X points.  

Points transfer to airlines on a 1:1 basis, so United, Southwest, and British Airways for sure all can be transferred through the Ultimate Rewards Portal.


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## Fisch (Aug 30, 2014)

I know Costco rates dropped for our October trip earlier this week. Of course I rebooked..


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## rickandcindy23 (Aug 30, 2014)

Kauai is more for 9/20-9/27.  I think it will go down, but it's currently $216 through Dollar on the Ultimate Rewards Portal.


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## BocaBoy (Aug 30, 2014)

rickandcindy23 said:


> Kauai is more for 9/20-9/27.  I think it will go down, but it's currently $216 through Dollar on the Ultimate Rewards Portal.


Over the past few years I have found rental cars in Kauai to be generally the most expensive of the four main islands.  (The Big island is generally the cheapest, in my experience at least.)


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## KauaiMark (Aug 30, 2014)

*...Chase's Ultimate Rewards Portal looks good*



rickandcindy23 said:


> You didn't offer specific dates, but I just checked Chase's Ultimate Rewards Portal for 9/13-9/20 Maui car rental.  Intermediate is $165 all in for a full week.  Kauai is $20 cheaper for the same dates.



After seeing your post, I decided to see if Chase would beat the rate I got from Costco for our upcoming trip to Williamsburg, VA. 

Same dates/same size car: Chase was $11 less for the week. Not a big difference but something to keep in mind for our Kauai trip next year.

Thanks for the find..

...Mark


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## Chilcotin (Aug 30, 2014)

*SUV deal*

I was able to get an intermediate SUV through discount hawaii rental cars for just over $600 for our trip to Maui from November 2 to 22.


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## MuranoJo (Aug 31, 2014)

rickandcindy23 said:


> The Chase Ink Bold card has 50K bonus points with a minimum spend.  The card gets us 5X points for purchases at office supply stores, including gift cards they sell.  So everything you buy at Staples, Office Max, Office Depot, it's 5X.  The only thing I buy is gift cards.
> 
> Another great benefit is 5X points on cell phone, internet, home phone, cable TV/ satellite, and those add up.  We get 3,000 points per month because we have all of those things, which we charge.
> 
> ...



Cindy, do you know if they have foreign transaction fees?  And what is the annual fee?  I have seen a few posts of yours talking about the sweet rental car deals and I may need to check into this.  Really interested in a chip & pin card, but from what I have seen this may have to wait until next fall.


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## sjsharkie (Aug 31, 2014)

rickandcindy23 said:


> You didn't offer specific dates, but I just checked Chase's Ultimate Rewards Portal for 9/13-9/20 Maui car rental.  Intermediate is $165 all in for a full week.  Kauai is $20 cheaper for the same dates.
> 
> I have gotten almost every car through the Chase portal in the last year.  The deals are unbeatable, and I used to be a diehard for Costco.  No more.



I agree that the rates are good, but I have still found Costco's rates cheaper for this trip to Kauai.  I often book using the Costco code, but with a different coupon for Alamo on Alamo's website (since they often have the cheapest rate but crappy or no coupons).

A couple items of note:

1. Costco does not use Thrifty or Dollar as a supplier for car rentals.  More often than not, I have noticed that Chase is cheaper, but that is because Thrifty or Dollar is the lowest rate.  For example, i just checked for my dates on Maui (9/5 to 9/14) and Thrifty is the cheapest option on Chase (at $192) vs. Alamo on Costco (at $209) - $17 is nothing to sneeze at.  [As an aside, I have an SUV booked at $206 for those dates which is not offered for some reason on Chase (at least for the searches I've done)]

1a. YMMV as I picked a random week for Maui 12/12 to 12/19/14 and Costco is cheaper on all car types for this date range.

2.  I've been unsure if these rates are prepaid or not (Cindy can comment on this) -- the checkout instructions unclear.  I do know that I read the following items in the terms:



> 1.  Cancellations or modifications received at any time may be subject to the applicable Supplier fee. Such fee will appear on your monthly card statement as "CL *Chase Travel."
> 2.  Car cancellations received within two (2) days of pick-up date will be subject to a Supplier cancellation fee equal to the charge for a one-day rental, if applicable.
> 3.  No shows are non-refundable and will result in a total forfeiture of any payments made and points used by you in connection with the reservation, without credit due.



These terms are quite scary to me.  I'm not even sure what term #1 is and why they should be able to charge a Supplier fee at any time if I choose to cancel/modify.  Even though I'm fairly sure I will book the car within 2 days out, emergencies do happen and I'm not thrilled about a 2 day prior cancellation fee much less the total forfeiture for no shows.  I probably cancel 8 or 9 rentals before the final reservation is booked with Costco.

Plus Alamo lets me pick my car and Costco always allows a second driver for free.  For these reasons, when there is a small premium for Costco over the Chase portal, I generally will choose Costco.

To each his own though -- the rates are good and for those who don't check often (book once and forget about it), I think it is a good way to go.  I do check Costco travel almost every day from 60 days out of my trip since rates fluctuate daily, and I am a bargain hunter.

Just wanted to make sure everyone was aware of some of the caveats.

-ryan


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## sjsharkie (Aug 31, 2014)

MuranoJo said:


> Cindy, do you know if they have foreign transaction fees?  And what is the annual fee?  I have seen a few posts of yours talking about the sweet rental car deals and I may need to check into this.  Really interested in a chip & pin card, but from what I have seen this may have to wait until next fall.



Just as an FYI, you can access the portal with other Chase cards (like Chase Freedom) that do not have annual fees.

But they don't come with the same card benefits as Chase's fee cards like Chase Ink Bold.

-ryan


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## rickandcindy23 (Aug 31, 2014)

If you cancel within 48 hours of the car pickup, you get a full refund. 

Since I get huge points for purchases at office supply stores and our Dish/phone/cell service and internet, we don't care one bit about the annual fee.  

Don't know about foreign transaction fees.  

We got a Jeep Liberty through Chase's portal at Dollar.  That was early this month for two weeks, $297 with all taxes and fees included.  Mom is 86, and she wanted to be able to see out of the window on the Big Island because it will be her only visit.  She loved the visibility from that back seat.  

Dollar was great.  I would definitely rent again.

Our son had a 2 week full-sized car rental in June for Maui, and it was only $206 total for 2 weeks through the portal.  Of course, he owns a BMW M5 and a Nissan GTR, so he was not impressed with a Chevy Impala.  His next trip, he is actually thinking about shipping his car to Maui.  That's ridiculous.  He could have rented a Mustang for something like $900.


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## california-bighorn (Aug 31, 2014)

*Alaska Airlines Website*

Dave
A few days ago I was checking our flight to Maui for later this week to make sure the times had not changed and I decided to also check to see what was available for rental cars even tho I had what I considered to be a great deal.  Going thru Alaska's website I saved $75 on the 11 day rental.  As I remember you will be flying Alaska thru Sacramento.  The total for the 11 days is $303 for a compact including all taxes and fees.  My search was actually directed to and thru Orbiz.  The rental company I got is Budget.  May be other providers available, I don't remember.  I just went to "My Trips" on the Alaska site and there are tabs that appear for hotels and rental cars.
Marty


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## sjsharkie (Aug 31, 2014)

rickandcindy23 said:


> Of course, he owns a BMW M5 and a Nissan GTR, so he was not impressed with a Chevy Impala.  His next trip, he is actually thinking about shipping his car to Maui.  That's ridiculous.  He could have rented a Mustang for something like $900.



Your son has company.  I'm not impressed with a Chevy Impala either (although I will say the new models are much much better than the previous model).

But mothers know best -- shipping a car to Maui is ridiculous for a short stay.

-ryan


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## DaveNV (Aug 31, 2014)

california-bighorn said:


> Dave
> A few days ago I was checking our flight to Maui for later this week to make sure the times had not changed and I decided to also check to see what was available for rental cars even tho I had what I considered to be a great deal.  Going thru Alaska's website I saved $75 on the 11 day rental.  As I remember you will be flying Alaska thru Sacramento.  The total for the 11 days is $303 for a compact including all taxes and fees.  My search was actually directed to and thru Orbiz.  The rental company I got is Budget.  May be other providers available, I don't remember.  I just went to "My Trips" on the Alaska site and there are tabs that appear for hotels and rental cars.
> Marty




Thanks, Marty, I'll check them out! I never look that way because I always figured the prices were too high.

Dave


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## sjsharkie (Aug 31, 2014)

rickandcindy23 said:


> If you cancel within 48 hours of the car pickup, you get a full refund.
> 
> Since I get huge points for purchases at office supply stores and our Dish/phone/cell service and internet, we don't care one bit about the annual fee.
> 
> ...



I'm not terribly fond of prepaying unless I get a significant discount.  That plus the other items are generally a deal breaker unless the price difference is huge.  (I forgot to mention that my Kauai 1 week rental for this week (8 days) is $140 all-in for a full size -- what a deal!)

I have not seen cases where any of the Costco affiliated rental companies are cheaper on the Chase portal.  I do suspect this boils down to whether or not Thrifty/Dollar is cheaper for the given search period.

-ryan


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## cgeidl (Aug 31, 2014)

*Most often get Alamo*

We like DCHR as you can get extra drivers at no cost. We usually get Alamo and book a compact but never get one. They used to try to upgrade us for $10'or so a day. We always refuse and they never had the compact but always a mid size and even a huge 8 passenger car one time. We turned that down and picked up a convertible which they said we had to pay extra for. Lately we just pay the compact rate and they say select any car in a big section.
.When I pointed out the huge rig they tried to get us to take cost more they gave us the convertble. One time there was no car available and we had to wait an hour and a half. We negotiated what there charge for being late to be deducted from our charges.


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## Luanne (Aug 31, 2014)

cgeidl said:


> We like DCHR as you can get extra drivers at no cost.



Same with Costco.  I always look both places but so far Costco has come up with the lower price every time.


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## MuranoJo (Sep 1, 2014)

sjsharkie said:


> Just as an FYI, you can access the portal with other Chase cards (like Chase Freedom) that do not have annual fees.
> 
> But they don't come with the same card benefits as Chase's fee cards like Chase Ink Bold.
> 
> -ryan



Thanks, Ryan.  I do have a Chase mileage card so I'll poke around and see what I can find.


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## sjsharkie (Sep 1, 2014)

MuranoJo said:


> Thanks, Ryan.  I do have a Chase mileage card so I'll poke around and see what I can find.



Glad to help.  I know the rewards cards that use a reward point system with Chase generally have access to the UR portal.

Not sure about others that have brand specific rewards like mileage that must be used on specific carriers.

-ryan


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## Polly Metallic (Sep 4, 2014)

I had never heard of Discount Hawaii Car Rental. I usually use carrentalsavers.com and have gotten some very good rates. I just checked DHCR and at this point in time, their rates beat what I had with carrentalsavers so I have cancelled and rebooked. Saved quite a bit. 

THANKS for the tip!!!


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## PearlCity (Sep 4, 2014)

Polly Metallic said:


> I had never heard of Discount Hawaii Car Rental. I usually use carrentalsavers.com and have gotten some very good rates. I just checked DHCR and at this point in time, their rates beat what I had with carrentalsavers so I have cancelled and rebooked. Saved quite a bit.
> 
> THANKS for the tip!!!



Discount Hawaii Car Rental always seems to beat the other sites every time. I use them regularly.


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## DaveNV (Sep 4, 2014)

PearlCity said:


> Discount Hawaii Car Rental always seems to beat the other sites every time. I use them regularly.



Just be sure to always compare them against Costco.  Lately, Costco has been even lower priced.  On my trip to Maui and Kauai coming up, I had DHCR reservations I thought were pretty good.  But Costco came through a few weeks ago and beat DHCR by a fair amount.

Dave


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## PearlCity (Sep 4, 2014)

BMWguynw said:


> Just be sure to always compare them against Costco.  Lately, Costco has been even lower priced.  On my trip to Maui and Kauai coming up, I had DHCR reservations I thought were pretty good.  But Costco came through a few weeks ago and beat DHCR by a fair amount.
> 
> Dave


Wow! I usually do compare. Good to know though!


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## Polly Metallic (Sep 4, 2014)

BMWguynw said:


> Just be sure to always compare them against Costco.  Lately, Costco has been even lower priced.  On my trip to Maui and Kauai coming up, I had DHCR reservations I thought were pretty good.  But Costco came through a few weeks ago and beat DHCR by a fair amount.
> 
> Dave



I am not a COSTCO member. We don't even have any around here! We have BJ's which is similar and I checked their rental rates, and they were higher than carrentalsavers and DHCR.


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## DaveNV (Sep 4, 2014)

Polly Metallic said:


> I am not a COSTCO member. We don't even have any around here! We have BJ's which is similar and I checked their rental rates, and they were higher than carrentalsavers and DHCR.



BJ's and Costco are very different companies, so don't think one is just the same as the other.  You can check the Costco website and compare car rental rates, even if you're not a member. http://www.costcotravel.com/Rental-Cars

If you decide it's worth your trouble, you can join Costco online, and use the membership to shop at their online website.  At any point during the membership year, if you decide you aren't getting your money's worth, or you're not fully satisfied for any reason, they will cancel the membership and refund the membership fee in full.

You may save enough in car rental rates alone to justify the annual membership fee.  Start here:  http://www.costco.com/join-costco.h...-_-Top_Right_Nav2-_-Top_membership&lang=en-US

Dave


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## JJ the Canuck (Oct 26, 2014)

I just booked two weeks on Kauai for January 2015 through Thrifty.  Their hot deals ($346 taxes all in for midsize).  On the Costco website, similar prices through Alamo and Enterprise ($340 and $348 respectively.) 

Also booked one week on Maui for February ($292.33) through Thrifty.  
Again, their hot deal.  It's for a premium car - which strangely enough was cheaper than the others.  Perhaps because of gas prices?  

On the Costco site, same vehicle through Enterprise is $303.  Decent price for intermediate though at $268.00.

FYI.


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## yeereid (Oct 26, 2014)

I'm quite proud of the deal I scored on Costco for Kauai next week: $183 all in for an intermediate SUV!


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## DaveNV (Oct 27, 2014)

yeereid said:


> I'm quite proud of the deal I scored on Costco for Kauai next week: $183 all in for an intermediate SUV!



Awesome deal! And a great car for Kauai.

Dave


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## jpc763 (Nov 4, 2014)

I have a Costco rate for a Midsize SUV for $288 for 10 days in Maui over Thanksgiving.  The rate was $176.49 but taxes were $111.74 

What is the deal with the taxes!


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## DaveNV (Nov 4, 2014)

jpc763 said:


> I have a Costco rate for a Midsize SUV for $288 for 10 days in Maui over Thanksgiving.  The rate was $176.49 but taxes were $111.74
> 
> What is the deal with the taxes!



The rental companies, the airports, and the states add all those taxes in.  It's really shocking if you go to a rental company website, like Thrifty. The rental rate is very appealing, but the final rate after taxes is sometimes more than double.  Very deceptive, to my way of thinking.

Just for fun, check the rental rates at Phoenix airport sometime.  They're higher taxes than anywhere I've ever seen.

Dave


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## squeegeeman (Nov 6, 2014)

I go to Kauai so much I've looked into storing a car in Puhi.  At 200.00 a month and having to deal with rats climbing into the engine, I decided it is still too much trouble.  I like Hawaii Discount Car Rental for having great customer service if something goes wrong, but otherwise I stick with Costco.  I check at 15 days, 8 days, and the night before my rental period.  If rates are similar, I may have 2 reservations in case there is a scary long line at one outlet vs another ("hello, budget!").  I still give the highest marks to Enterprise wherever I go.  Also, your tires and $150.00 keys are not covered for mechanical damage.  Very important to know when you rent a smart key car.  Lots of people throw those keys in their board shorts and take them into the pool or ocean.  They get corroded and fail.  I was "stranded" at Lawai Beach Resort last August for seven hours after my baked smart key gave the ECU in my rented Ford Fusion a stroke and auto-immobilized it.  I was relieved to wait for free towing and replacement there, since my next stop was Pihea Lookout.  As a result, I like stupid key, mechanically sound cars like the Nissan Versa.


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## Czahara1 (Nov 6, 2014)

Any new Hawaii car rental discounts?

Hotwire has deals in December to Maui and Kauai.  Full size for less than $10/day before tax.  The dates are fixed, so may or may not meet your needs.


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