First time to Maui - advice about renting a car

[Work hard to play harder :)!]

My husband and I plan to vacation in Maui in late May; this is our first time to Hawaii :whoopie:.

Does anyone have any advise on renting a car? I figure we should rent the car, upon arrival, in order to check in and purchase groceries. Then I think we'd return it thereafter and rely on the hotel shuttle, public transportation, or transportation from any tours we sign up for.

We saw, via Kayak, that a one day rental for a compact car from Advantage car rental starts around $50+.

Any advise is greatly appreciated. We want to stock up on food from Costco or Safeway.

 

[DeniseM]

Maui is very rural, and pubic transportation, and resort shuttles are very limited. If you don't have a car, you will be extremely limited in what you can do and see.

Skip the tours, apply the money to a car rental, and you will come out ahead.

This is who we use to book our rental cars in Hawaii - no money upfront, and you can keep check-in for lower rates, cancel and rebook:

www.discounthawaiicarrental.

Be aware that Costco is on the opposites side of the island than the resorts, so if you are going to do Costco, stop there after the airport.

 

[Luanne]

I agree about needing a car. If you don't have one you are pretty much stuck at your resort.

I suggest checking Costco travel for car rentals. I always check both Discount Hawaii and Costco and every time Costco has come up with the best rates. You do need to keep checking back as the rates change (up and down). There is no penalty for cancelling and re-booking.

 

[shade]

I look a couple of times a week at almost all the car rental sites. Find discount codes and give them a try. Rent with Autoslash.com. They keep looking for lower prices right up to your departure. Cancellation no problem and no cost. discounthawaiicarrental.com is good, but I have been able to beat them. It is fun to search and find deals. When you get one, you have to jump on it. You should be able to get a mid-size car for $30-$40/day, all included.
Please rent a car. You really want to explore Maui and all the activities, dining opportunities, and entertainment beyond WKORV.

 

[Luanne]

Right now on Maui in March through Costco (and Discount Hawaii) we are getting a standard SUV for $555.00 all in. That breaks down to just under $40/day. Smaller cars are of course much less. Just wanted to compare to the OP's $50/day rental.

And just for fun I went to the Costco site, plugged in a week in late May for Maui. Got back a rate on a compact car from Budget for $264.74 all in. That breaks down to $37.82/day.

 

[Fredward]

definitely need a car!

I agree completely with the other members- you can find great deals with both discounthawaiicarrentals and Costco. You may want to compare different car sizes though- we have been able to get bigger (midsize and full size) cars for less cost than our usual compact prices. We have been there in both May and September and always were able to rent for a week for less than $200 total. One great suggestion to add- refill your car at Costco before returning it to the rental agency, Costco is very close to the airport and their gas has been priced 40-70 cents a gallon cheaper than other stations.

 

[shade]

Gas at Costco was exactly $1/gal cheaper yesterday at $2.49. You will have to wait in line though. Took 30 mins. to get to pump. Build that into your timeframe.

 

[gvic]

Costco Travel..... save $$$ on a car rental.

 

[vacationtime1]

I look a couple of times a week at almost all the car rental sites. Find discount codes and give them a try. Rent with Autoslash.com. They keep looking for lower prices right up to your departure. Cancellation no problem and no cost. discounthawaiicarrental.com is good, but I have been able to beat them. It is fun to search and find deals. When you get one, you have to jump on it. You should be able to get a mid-size car for $30-$40/day, all included.
Please rent a car. You really want to explore Maui and all the activities, dining opportunities, and entertainment beyond WKORV.

This is good advice: recheck prices over and over, or at least until you get to about $30/day on Maui. No logic to the rental agencies' pricing structure. May is a good time to get cheap rentals.

Keep the car the entire week; you need it for sightseeing, restaurants, and getting back to the airport.

Costco is much cheaper than Safeway on Maui. Note that the Costco is about a mile from the airport and 20-30 miles from most of the resorts.

 

[Passepartout]

Not renting a car on Maui is false economy. Might as well stay home. You'll save even more. follow the advice here. Enjoy. It is a wonderful place.

Jim

 

[n777lt]

Timing too

I always reserve a car at least 9 months out, using the best discount code I can find, and then give it to the discount car rental site (link in a post upthread) to try to beat, and check monthly on my own. My reservation made last April for a full-size car for 2 weeks in March is $575, and I'll probably end up with a cross-over SUV (my status gets me upgrades).

 

[Work hard to play harder :)!]

I look a couple of times a week at almost all the car rental sites. Find discount codes and give them a try. Rent with Autoslash.com. They keep looking for lower prices right up to your departure. Cancellation no problem and no cost. discounthawaiicarrental.com is good, but I have been able to beat them. It is fun to search and find deals. When you get one, you have to jump on it. You should be able to get a mid-size car for $30-$40/day, all included.
Please rent a car. You really want to explore Maui and all the activities, dining opportunities, and entertainment beyond WKORV.

Thank you very much. I'll start looking into it.

We will be there May 28 -June 4. Also, since we are SVN owners does anyone know if we are subject to overnight parking fees?

 

[Work hard to play harder :)!]

Gas at Costco was exactly $1/gal cheaper yesterday at $2.49. You will have to wait in line though. Took 30 mins. to get to pump. Build that into your timeframe.

Thanks for the heads up about building in time to fill up. I hate to admit it but I'm always pushing it when getting to the airport to catch a flight.

 

[DeniseM]

Thank you very much. I'll start looking into it.

We will be there May 28 -June 4. Also, since we are SVN owners does anyone know if we are subject to overnight parking fees?

Starwood resorts don't have parking fees for owners.

 

[Work hard to play harder :)!]

Right now on Maui in March through Costco (and Discount Hawaii) we are getting a standard SUV for $555.00 all in. That breaks down to just under $40/day. Smaller cars are of course much less. Just wanted to compare to the OP's $50/day rental.

And just for fun I went to the Costco site, plugged in a week in late May for Maui. Got back a rate on a compact car from Budget for $264.74 all in. That breaks down to $37.82/day.

Thanks. Will check Costco for that rate with Budget. I've seen rates a bit lower with Advantage car rental, but I'm not too familiar with the company.

I've rented from Budget, Enterprise, Hertz, and National and did not have any problems.

I also rented from Alamo but had issues with their cars.

 

[Work hard to play harder :)!]

Starwood resorts don't have parking fees for owners.

Thanks. This is the fourth SVN property we are vacationing at. We bought our resale at the end of 2013. We only been to WMH and WDW since they are a little less than two hours away as owners, and WL on an explorer package.

I remember wanting to purchase at WL, but then I found this wonderful forum .

 

[Luanne]

Thanks. Will check Costco for that rate with Budget. I've seen rates a bit lower with Advantage car rental, but I'm not too familiar with the company.

I've rented from Budget, Enterprise, Hertz, and National and did not have any problems.

I also rented from Alamo but had issues with their cars.

We also need a car for one day on Oahu. I found a good price through Discount Hawaiian for "Brand 6". Turns out it was Advantage. I checked the online Yelp reviews for Advantage at that location and they were terrible. I thought I'd heard some negatives about Advantage and wanted to check it out.

 

[Luanne]

Rental through Costco just dropped another $20 for the two week period. We're getting a standard SUV, this time through Alamo. And yes, I'll keep checking up until the day before we leave.

Just checked again today (Thursday) and the price is down again, now to $482 for the standard SUV through Budget. The price has gone down almost $100 for the 2 week period since I started looking.

 

[BocaBoy]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Priceline's name your own price. I always reserve through either Costco or Discount Hawaii, then check occasionally to see if the price has come down, and then about 10 days before the trip starts I start trying Priceline. I beat the other prices at least half the time this way on Maui, although last November/December Costco was the winner.

 

[artringwald]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Priceline's name your own price. I always reserve through either Costco or Discount Hawaii, then check occasionally to see if the price has come down, and then about 10 days before the trip starts I start trying Priceline. I beat the other prices at least half the time this way on Maui, although last November/December Costco was the winner.

The trouble with Priceline is that you pay in advance and there's no refund if you have to change. We had to cancel a trip at the last minute once because our dog got sick (not covered by travel insurance), and we didn't get a penny back from Priceline. Fortunately, we were flying Southwest and got full credit toward another flight. discounthawaiicarrental.com and rentalcars.com let you cancel and rebook for no charge.

Recently, I had a good rate on a little car for two weeks on Kauai, but when my son's family decided to go with us, I started looking at minivans. It was holding steady at $1150 until about 3 weeks out when it started dropping $50-$100/day. I kept canceling and rebooking until it bottomed out at $590 with 2 weeks to go. It's been going up and with less than a week now, it's $830. It's like playing the stock market.

 

[Ken555]

The trouble with Priceline is that you pay in advance and there's no refund if you have to change. We had to cancel a trip at the last minute once because our dog got sick (not covered by travel insurance), and we didn't get a penny back from Priceline. Fortunately, we were flying Southwest and got full credit toward another flight. discounthawaiicarrental.com and rentalcars.com let you cancel and rebook for no charge.

How is this a problem? Priceline is usually going to save you money compared to other options, but it's obviously not the same product since you don't have the same recourse to cancel. You also don't get the second driver free as you would if reserving from certain others such as Costco. I also often check Priceline just prior to a trip (even up to day of, or day before, the trip) and it can sometimes be less.

For a trip in March I've already rebooked the car four times, currently with a standard SUV for less than a mid-size at an average cost of $27 per day after taxes and fees. I expect it will be less by the time I travel and wouldn't at all be surprised if I can get a mid-size from Priceline for $15-18/day.



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[Luanne]

I am surprised no one has mentioned Priceline's name your own price. I always reserve through either Costco or Discount Hawaii, then check occasionally to see if the price has come down, and then about 10 days before the trip starts I start trying Priceline. I beat the other prices at least half the time this way on Maui, although last November/December Costco was the winner.

I used to use Priceline, but no more. The last few times I've tried them they couldn't beat the price I got with Costco. The other problem was that the last time we used them we found we had to pay for the second driver. Since I picked the car up, but dh was really going to be the driver, we got stuck on that. So, no more Priceline for me. Plus, you can't cancel it once the reservation is made.

 

[mjm1]

I typically use Costco and have very good results. Does anyone have experience with renting from Enterprise on Maui? I have used Alamo through Costco and had good luck. Right now Enterprise is a bit less expensive.

Thanks

Mike

 

[Luanne]

I typically use Costco and have very good results. Does anyone have experience with renting from Enterprise on Maui? I have used Alamo through Costco and had good luck. Right now Enterprise is a bit less expensive.

Thanks

Mike

On Maui I think all rental companies are located in about the same off airport location. Personally I'd go with whoever is cheapest. Right now our cheapest rate is with Budget, but by the time we go who knows who it will be with.

 

[Ken555]

I typically use Costco and have very good results. Does anyone have experience with renting from Enterprise on Maui? I have used Alamo through Costco and had good luck. Right now Enterprise is a bit less expensive.



Thanks



Mike

The lowest cost vendor changes based on your travel dates and type of car. I was reserved with Budget but this morning switched to Avis. Now at $26/day after taxes and fees for a full size. I'd rather not reserve with Budget due to the long lines at their office (my favorite is Alamo since its so quick and easy to get thru their office). I haven't rented from Avis in Maui before so not sure how quick they'll be.


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