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Rental cars

zentraveler

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I think rechecking these days is futile. We are only seeing big increases in rental rates the closer we get to our travel dates. I too am concerned about them honoring an earlier booked cheap rate. I guess though they could play the same game we all play with booking new and cancelling old.

I am noticing the same thing. Every time I check they are higher. And my expensive price looks less and less expensive. Not flying until later in August so will keep checking now and then, but not holding out much hope.

I saved enough money that I will be picking up the car at the Hyatt Ka'anapali rather than OGG. Now a little concerned that I may have trouble getting an Uber/Lyft to WKORV, since they are also supply and demand driven. Has anyone done this recently?
 

easyrider

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I used the link this morning and played with the dates and time. It looks like we will shuttle or uber to the resort. We pick up the car at the airport 5 days before we leave. The cost was about $34 a day and $55 a day including taxes/ fees for an intermediate car from a major auto rental company. It was a pre-pay non-refundable which is something I always avoided in the past.

It looks like 4- 5 days gives a lower price. I might try adding the first 5 days on a different reservation. Then maybe another reservation in the middle. I might just leave it alone too.

edit : So I tried the days before and the rate was $192 a day for an intermediate car. I tried the days in the middle and the rate was $167 a day. These rates are before taxes and fee's.

Bill
 
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csodjd

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I used the link this morning and played with the dates and time. It looks like we will shuttle or uber to the resort. We pick up the car at the airport 5 days before we leave. The cost was about $34 a day and $55 a day including taxes/ fees for an intermediate car from a major auto rental company. It was a pre-pay non-refundable which is something I always avoided in the past.

It looks like 4- 5 days gives a lower price. I might try adding the first 5 days on a different reservation. Then maybe another reservation in the middle. I might just leave it alone too.

edit : So I tried the days before and the rate was $192 a day for an intermediate car. I tried the days in the middle and the rate was $167 a day. These rates are before taxes and fee's.

Bill
One of the problems with car rental is that your rental car spend a lot of time idle. You have the car for a week, but spend some of those days at the beach, etc. Has anyone developed a “car share” app or site where two people going to the same place can agree to SHARE a rental car? Say I have a car for a week, and I paid $150/day. But I know I’m not going to use the car for 3 of those days… so I “sub-lease” the car at my daily rate to someone else. I know there is the issue of a second driver but there might be some way to deal with that.
 

easyrider

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One of the problems with car rental is that your rental car spend a lot of time idle. You have the car for a week, but spend some of those days at the beach, etc. Has anyone developed a “car share” app or site where two people going to the same place can agree to SHARE a rental car? Say I have a car for a week, and I paid $150/day. But I know I’m not going to use the car for 3 of those days… so I “sub-lease” the car at my daily rate to someone else. I know there is the issue of a second driver but there might be some way to deal with that.

To be honest, I would rather deal with a company and not a person, especially any person I know.

Bill
 

TheTimeTraveler

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One of the problems with car rental is that your rental car spend a lot of time idle. You have the car for a week, but spend some of those days at the beach, etc. Has anyone developed a “car share” app or site where two people going to the same place can agree to SHARE a rental car? Say I have a car for a week, and I paid $150/day. But I know I’m not going to use the car for 3 of those days… so I “sub-lease” the car at my daily rate to someone else. I know there is the issue of a second driver but there might be some way to deal with that.


Something similar to that already exists. It is called Zip Car and you rent the car by the hour.

Zip Car is located in many major cities in the USA. Not sure if they are in Hawaii or not.



.
 

Ty1on

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My wife jumped all over me for reserving a midsize at $1K for the week. As we've continued to monitor and see offerings, when they are there to be found at all, of $1,200, then $1,400, then $1,600, for compacts, she has lightened up.
 

zentraveler

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Something similar to that already exists. It is called Zip Car and you rent the car by the hour.

Zip Car is located in many major cities in the USA. Not sure if they are in Hawaii or not.

Only in Honolulu according to their website. Gataround is another one, but also not apparently in Hawaii.
 

1Kflyerguy

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One of the problems with car rental is that your rental car spend a lot of time idle. You have the car for a week, but spend some of those days at the beach, etc. Has anyone developed a “car share” app or site where two people going to the same place can agree to SHARE a rental car? Say I have a car for a week, and I paid $150/day. But I know I’m not going to use the car for 3 of those days… so I “sub-lease” the car at my daily rate to someone else. I know there is the issue of a second driver but there might be some way to deal with that.

I doubt the rental agencies would be very interested in allowing sub rentals of their cars.. I have not checked the rental agreement, but doubt it allows for that.. I think they want to know who has the car and is driving it...
 

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MEXICO: Crown Paradise, Royal Holiday Club, Vidanta Mayan Palace, and Vidanta "Kingdom of the Sun-Nuevo Vallarta at Vidanta World.
I am noticing the same thing. Every time I check they are higher. And my expensive price looks less and less expensive. Not flying until later in August so will keep checking now and then, but not holding out much hope.

I saved enough money that I will be picking up the car at the Hyatt Ka'anapali rather than OGG. Now a little concerned that I may have trouble getting an Uber/Lyft to WKORV, since they are also supply and demand driven. Has anyone done this recently?

There is always the Maui bus. ( in a pinch). See my post at the beginning of of this thread.


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zentraveler

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There is always the Maui bus. ( in a pinch). See my post at the beginning of of this thread.

Thanks PerryKing. I am a huge fan of TheBus on Oahu, and appreciated your post about Maui, but will have more luggage than they will allow (one suitcase, but not carry-on), and would like to avoid the time involved if at all possible.

The luggage restriction (which I completely understand) is the real issue for OGG, but an interesting idea for future trips and getting around the area.
 
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1Kflyerguy

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A month or so back i saw an interview with the Maui Mayor, and he was sort of thinking out loud about how great its been with fewer tourists and rental cars jamming the roads. He was hoping they never got all the rental cars back, and as an alternative idea he was floating the idea of diverting the tourists onto shuttles from the airport, and then to popular tourist spots. He seemed to feel that with the right fees involved they would reduce the traffic jams, and still move the tourists around.
 

csodjd

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A month or so back i saw an interview with the Maui Mayor, and he was sort of thinking out loud about how great its been with fewer tourists and rental cars jamming the roads. He was hoping they never got all the rental cars back, and as an alternative idea he was floating the idea of diverting the tourists onto shuttles from the airport, and then to popular tourist spots. He seemed to feel that with the right fees involved they would reduce the traffic jams, and still move the tourists around.
There is a lot of merit to that — have free or low cost shuttles that depart every 30 min for the two main hotel areas and deliver you to the hotel entrances, with luggage. Even better if the shuttles are natural gas or electric.

However, a lot of tax revenue is gained from rental cars. While people hate the negative impact such as traffic created by tourists in rental cars, they also won’t enjoy the loss of services that results from running out of money to fix pot holes and hire police and fire.
 

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There is a lot of merit to that — have free or low cost shuttles that depart every 30 min for the two main hotel areas and deliver you to the hotel entrances, with luggage.

Would love it if there was an effective "public" transportation system but "public" means government and government means inconvenience, waste and fraud with some official's brother-in-law getting rich. It adds to cost and pollution with a lot of big empty buses running around. It rarely results in a well run system effective for it's purpose.

But it certainly seems some private enterprise could step up. How many thousand cars are rented a day (pre-Covid) in Maui for example? Even at $30 or $40 per day, a lot of money to work with.

How many hours per day and miles per day are put on those cars? Not all that much I would bet. Most spend the day in some parking lot or another.

Seems like a company could charge a vacation transportation fee and have well coordinated airport to hotel and hotel to attraction shuttles, internal "Taxi" with some usage included in the base fee and extra fee delivered day trip cars for individual use.

The transportation of tourists clearly could be done with fewer cars, decreased cost for the travelers and minimal inconvenience. Seems to me.

The company could pay a tax to support local infrastructure.

There is always however a loser in any innovation. Rental car companies and their employees, car manufactures and their employees, fuel sales, and road side stand owners for example. Costs are never truly "saved" they are just redistributed.
 

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There is a lot of merit to that — have free or low cost shuttles that depart every 30 min for the two main hotel areas and deliver you to the hotel entrances, with luggage. Even better if the shuttles are natural gas or electric.

However, a lot of tax revenue is gained from rental cars. While people hate the negative impact such as traffic created by tourists in rental cars, they also won’t enjoy the loss of services that results from running out of money to fix pot holes and hire police and fire.
Sounds good on the surface but it's unlikely to work out to be low cost and convenient plus you'd need to be able to get around, just not to and from the airport. And while the resorts could pony up the costs ultimately we'd end up paying for it one way or another.
 

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Sounds good on the surface but it's unlikely to work out ...

Not sure I agree. With the coordination afforded by the smart phone, the likely very predictable behavior of tourists, increased efficiency of electric vehicles which could be practical in a coordinated on island travel service (shuttles and single day rental cars, maybe the taxis too) and grocery delivery services, the transportation of which might be included in the weekly fee I believe it COULD work, provided of course it is not done by the government.

I believe the cost to tourists could be less than renting a car for 7 days that MOST tourists maybe drive an hour or less per day. Certainly there are some folks for whom daily long day trip tourism is what they do but they could rent a car.
 

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Not sure I agree. With the coordination afforded by the smart phone, the likely very predictable behavior of tourists, increased efficiency of electric vehicles which could be practical in a coordinated on island travel service (shuttles and single day rental cars, maybe the taxis too) and grocery delivery services, the transportation of which might be included in the weekly fee I believe it COULD work, provided of course it is not done by the government.

I believe the cost to tourists could be less than renting a car for 7 days that MOST tourists maybe drive an hour or less per day. Certainly there are some folks for whom daily long day trip tourism is what they do but they could rent a car.
It's not that they couldn't do it but that I don't see them doing so both conveniently and cost effectively. It'd have to be quite a bit less to make it reasonable to give up the convenience of having the car.
 

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A month or so back i saw an interview with the Maui Mayor, and he was sort of thinking out loud about how great its been with fewer tourists and rental cars jamming the roads. He was hoping they never got all the rental cars back, and as an alternative idea he was floating the idea of diverting the tourists onto shuttles from the airport, and then to popular tourist spots. He seemed to feel that with the right fees involved they would reduce the traffic jams, and still move the tourists around.

I think they need to address Costco being close to the airport. Can’t carry a load of Costco stuff on the bus :-(
 

dioxide45

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I have seen more people pulling up to off site Orlando timeshares in Uber and Lyft this year than I can remember. We are staying at Kingstown Reef on International Drive and have seen several people being dropped off in rideshare. I suspect high rental car prices are driving this.
 

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It's not that they couldn't do it but that I don't see them doing so both conveniently and cost effectively. It'd have to be quite a bit less to make it reasonable to give up the convenience of having the car.
All that’s needed is a hybrid model. Imagine you go to the Rent-a-Car website and for a single price you buy shuttle transport between the airport (both ways) and your hotel and choose three days of rental car (they can have 2-day, 3-day, or 4-day options with steep penalties for failing to timely return a car). It includes transport to/from your hotel to/from the rental car lot for pickup and delivery. They have two lots, one near each of the main tourism hubs.
 

Dean

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All that’s needed is a hybrid model. Imagine you go to the Rent-a-Car website and for a single price you buy shuttle transport between the airport (both ways) and your hotel and choose three days of rental car (they can have 2-day, 3-day, or 4-day options with steep penalties for failing to timely return a car). It includes transport to/from your hotel to/from the rental car lot for pickup and delivery. They have two lots, one near each of the main tourism hubs.
There are lots of ways to approach the issue of mass transportation but the direction I responded to was related to avoiding or minimizing rental cars even more than what this idea suggests. If you assume a bus schedule just to Kaanapali from the airport and service every 20 minutes sufficient to move everyone around, you're looking at what 20 or more buses during peak times plus drivers, maintenance, support staff, etc. And that assumes they work out a way to efficiently route the buses and not stop at locations they don't need to, something like an app along the lines that Uber/Lyft use. Plus I've learned that a Pessimist is an Optimist with experience and as alluded to above, the government doesn't have a history of doing things well or efficiently, esp from a cost standpoint. Thus it MIGHT sound good on paper but I don't see it working out in my lifetime.
 

csodjd

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There are lots of ways to approach the issue of mass transportation but the direction I responded to was related to avoiding or minimizing rental cars even more than what this idea suggests. If you assume a bus schedule just to Kaanapali from the airport and service every 20 minutes sufficient to move everyone around, you're looking at what 20 or more buses during peak times plus drivers, maintenance, support staff, etc. And that assumes they work out a way to efficiently route the buses and not stop at locations they don't need to, something like an app along the lines that Uber/Lyft use. Plus I've learned that a Pessimist is an Optimist with experience and as alluded to above, the government doesn't have a history of doing things well or efficiently, esp from a cost standpoint. Thus it MIGHT sound good on paper but I don't see it working out in my lifetime.
I’d rather see one bus than 10-15 rental cars. The idea is to reduce the car-days. If a 40 min bus ride can reduce car-days by 3-4, there is a big net gain for the community and traffic. Not government run, but rental car company run.
 

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I’d rather see one bus than 10-15 rental cars. The idea is to reduce the car-days. If a 40 min bus ride can reduce car-days by 3-4, there is a big net gain for the community and traffic. Not government run, but rental car company run.
Obviously they'd want as much or more profit than they normally would get pre Covid. IF one was going to do this likely something like Lyft or Uber would be the best short term option. Long term a light rail system might be best but I doubt it would be cost efficient. One of my criteria would make it win win. Cheaper but reasonably convenient for the customer and less cars. If I have to chose one over the other, it's more cars.
 

Ken555

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I hate big buses. I will do almost anything to avoid them. However, sometimes they are the best option.

In regards to Maui, it’s almost a sure bet that every nonstop flight from LA and SF have multiple groups heading to the Westin timeshares (and Marriotts, etc), especially on Fri, Sat, and Sun. I have always wondered why the resorts themselves don’t offer a small shuttle from the airport (for a fee). I suspect this offer would be much more appealing than a general bus to a central location, at which point we would need to transfer again to get to our destination. For those traveling from the east coast I’m sure the last thing they want is to extend their travel day.

From a practical perspective, I have very little confidence in a bus system to transport a large portion of the tourists to central locations and do it well. Not gonna happen.


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When I visit the Kaui Beach Villas I usually take the shuttle from the airport to the hotel and then rent a car for a couple of days during my stay from the onsite rental office to tour a few days during the middle of my stay.
 
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