ANOTHER car seat/car hire question; specifically US

[mrsbabookaloo]

Hello, I've looked at all the other threads on hiring a car seat with your hire car and feel very confused, so with apologies, am going to post my own qs.
Flying to SF, then driving to LA, with dd, who will be 16 months when we go.
We have 3 options:

1. Hire car seat with car So many people have said that even if you book a car seat with your car, they might not have one, or it might be old, insecure or dirty, and you should take your own. People who have hired cars in the US, is this generally the case? Has anybody successfully hired car and car seat in the US? Who with?
2. Take car seat and keep it on board with us for flight. Does this only work if you have booked a seat? Or can you put it on the floor? The ones for age 1 and above are pretty big, and we would have to lug it round the airport.
3. Take care seat and check it. People seem to say there's a risk of damage to the seat in transit. Is this just scaremongering and really most car seats are fine in the hold? We don't actually have a car seat at the mo; we don't have a car, and haven't yet upgraded from the baby one to the next stage, but we will get one anyway at some point. Which of the three should we go for? Hiring seems the easiest, if anyone can reassure me that there'll most likely be one available at the hire place and it'll be decent. Sorry for mammoth post. Thanks in advance.

You can check your car seat on the plane. The airline will give you a big placky bag for it, and treat it as fragile.

The cost of hiring a car seat in the US is around $10 a day, and the standard is dubious. All the car hire companies have car seats, btw. You just ask them when you pick up the car (or can ask in advance), and you'd be expected to fit it yourself.

If you don't own a car seat now, you could think about buying one in the US when you arrive. It would be a lot cheaper than hiring one, and you'd know it was new. The only problem would be getting from the airport to the shop.

Thanks for your reply, science teacher: And thanks for the tip about buying one there, that might be a good idea. Maybe we could buy one online, have it sent to the airport!!...hmm, might be a bit tricky. or hire the crappy one for a day, and then go buy one.

Anyone else got good/bad experiences of hiring cars with car seats in the US?

We had two car seats in the car when we went to america this yeat onr for a three year old and one for a two year old.
When we booked the car through virgin there was no charge for the car seats but you will need to pay for the higher insurance.
The car seats were fine the same as we had back here and they fitted them for us.

Thanks lovelymoo. So you booked your car hire through virgin...do you know what the actual car hire company was? And what do you mean when you say "you will need to pay for the higher insurance"?

Thanks

Hire for a day and then buy one and bring it back with you. It will have paid for itself in what it has saved in hire charges, so you won't be gutted if it gets damaged. But if you put it in a bag (I made a huge drawstring bag for ours, but notice you can buy them now) there is no reason why it should get damaged - most instances of damage are because the straps get snagged on things. Our Stage 2 seat has done at least a dozen flights (in bag) with no damage at all.

Second the hire one for a day and buy one. I live in the US and hired booster seats for my trip to Florida this year with Budget. They were clean and fine, but as my boys are in booster seats I didn't worry too much. Once you arrive go to either Walmart or Super Target and buy a seat there. They're cheap enough and far cheaper than hiring. With Budget booster seats were $60 for a week. "Look at this page". Please don't buy an Evenflo seat though terrible safety reputation.

When we were in the US this summer, we booked through Virgin - Dollar Rentacar - and it was £10 per day for a booster seat.

We just took our own, worth about $10, fully willing to leave it in the US if we found it to be a hassle at the airport - it wasn't.

To answer the question about using the car hire's seats, we've done this once, I think, and basically we had to pick them up from a big heap. They were tatty and grimy. Then we had to fit them ourselves. I think that was Hertz in Boston. Another time, we had asked for seats, but they gave us a minivan with flip down car seats. The cost of the more expensive vehicle offset the cost of hiring two seats. This was fab, but not something you could rely on.

Never hired one in the US

You can only take a stage 2 seat on the plane if you have booked a seat for the child

We have flown ours many times. One incident of damage so far - it got dropped and the plastic got cracked
We claimed on insurance. However with the exchange rate and excess I only got 50 quid back against a $200 seat.

Some airlines will give or sell you a plastic bag to put them in
Some don't

Walmart sell travel bags for car seats

Thanks for all your replies. Lots to think about!

it was with alamo (sp). they do different levels of car insurance the platinum one includes the car seats and you also got a bigger size car
HTH