Car hire in the US

[abouttimeforanewname]

We are needing to hire a car from Nashville airport. Does anyone have experience / recommendations please for good car hire companies in the US?

TIA

We used Avis through booking.com and they were fantastic and reasonable.

We just use well known companies and have booked via airline (BA) and Expedia. Never had any issues.

We always use enterprise in the states, mainly because oh is military and the he gets free upgrades and discounts in the u.s, but always found them to be good.

Thanks for the replies.

I've heard some horror stories from people hiring cars in European holiday destinations hence checking but sounds like things are straightforward in the US.

We’ve used Virgin Holidays -just for car hire in the USA.
pay in £ here in the UK.
pick up and drive when you’re over there.
they had a dedicated desk at the car hire company on a couple of occasions.

We've used Rentalcars.com a few times and found them cheaper than going direct to the hire companies.

They were also very good about cancellations during the pandemic and (from memory) charge in pounds so you lose the foreign exchange movement risk (hopefully it won't return to the 40 year low it hit a few months ago!).

Avis are having terrible issues at the moment. Alamo are always excellent

Hertz with a code and then I always get the extra insurance in the USA

Is price or convenience more important to you?

if price, just go for the cheapest, but you might have to get a shuttle bus to the car lot. If convenience, then look to see if there are any rental companies that are on site..those you can just walk to.

you will get an automatic car,

google about toll road transponders and work out if you want to use the rental car transponder (they might charge a fee) or if its possible to pay as you go..most tollroads make this quite difficult now. If you are using the rental car transponder, open it as soon as you get in the car and leave it open for the whole trip.

look at the insurance options ahead of time and see if any of your credit cards provide rental car insurance top ups. If they do, book the car with that card

once you have picked the company you want to use, see if you can sign up for the loyalty scheme and if that means you can just grab and go when you arrive. It saves loads of time waiting in queues once you arrive.

renting childrens car seats is usually a rip off, you will want gps driving assistance/maps as the US roads can be very confusing if you arent used to them. If your phone wont give you enough data in the US, consider renting the unit with the car

Any of the big companies will be fine. If there’s one near the terminal I would always do that over one that requires a bus. I’ve used sixt, hertz and enterprise in the US without issue. If you use the US version of the website so a .us website address you sometimes see more car options, especially useful if you want a specific type of car- I recently found this was the only way to get a full size SUV at my chosen location.If you need kids seats then they’re a complete rip but excluding boosters it’s not legal to use your UK ones.

There are no toll roads in Tennessee, could be in other states depending on where they're going.

I have hired from Alamo in last week in CA & FL, both fine. They worked out cheaper than competitors, and in FL I even managed to get a properly small car for a very nice change. I'm indifferent about which of the big companies I use in general.