Car rental .... aaaaaaaaaargh

[NotQuiteCockney]

I am trying to sort out car rental, for our upcoming trip.

I want to collect in one major city and leave it in another. Both are in the same country.

All the websites I've tried so far either a) say 'oh, hey, we'll charge you more for that, but we don't know how much yet, we'll send you an email telling you after you book'. Gee, thanks. Very helpful, if I want to compare prices.

Or they say 'oh, no, you can't do that'.

I just about threw the computer out the window trying to rent a car last year, and that was without this new complicated bit.

Aaaaargh!

Oh God, and now I'm remembering renting a car last year, and we reserved, and then they didn't have it ... aaargh ...

Where are you going? Holiday Autos were good for us in the USA, I took the car at San Francisco and left it at Las Vegas and did not have to pay a fee for that. You may need to get the advice from a travel agent.

Jesus fucking christ this sucks.

So many of the sites just let you enter everything and then go, 'oh, no, never mind, we don't have any cars then, at that branch'. FFS. No suggesting other branches or dates or anything, just a nice 'oh, well, change your choices, then'.

Canada. I don't know holiday autos.

I'm used to dealing with Dollar, and their website (the one that I'm using as a Brit - the Canadian website just puked on me) is the least scream-making, so far. But the home of the 'well, we'll charge you more, we're just not sure how much yet' thing.

None of the fecking comparison websites seem to allow for the possibility I might want to collect + drop off at different locations. Grrr.

This is always such a fucking drag.

Oh ... wait ... kayak ...

This might be possible. Oh god, this might just make this practical ...

Might be best to phone? So last century, but sometimes it is actually faster for these sorts of requests ime.

try this they used to be pretty competitive and they use Alamo I think

We did it with (I think) Hertz in France with no problems. Mind you, that was on the spot rather than in advance.

Yeah, phone is probably the way forward, but I hate it. Kayak is working ok, thankfully, although only with an airport drop off at one end ...

so what happened then NQC??

Well, I didn't want the kayak option (although I've sent them a feedback form already about what they need to fix). I decided to phone, and went through four different firms collecting addresses of the branches I wanted to use, and then started phoning.

Enterprise just said 'no, you can't do that'. Grr.

Then I looked at Hertz online, and they had the right sort of car, at a decent price, and some good collection/drop off locations! With maps on the website! So I think I will use them, just need to firm up dates. (And unlike Dollar, they don't say 'oh, we'll charge you extra for the one-way thing, but we don't know how much yet'.)

Kayak really are great, though, I just am always finding they don't do quite what I want. (Hotel stuff and flight stuff doesn't allow for existance of under-18s, etc etc.)

Oh, just tried holiday autos, just for comparison, and it said 'no, can't do that'.

The prices on hertz are comparable to the Dollar ones, and without a random extra surcharge, so that's a winner.

DP works for Hertz- he says try Holiday Autos- they will search the best deal with each Car Rental company

sorry xposts!

Do Hertz then!

It doesn't look like Holiday Autos has connections to all the car rental companies. It doesn't look like Kayak does, either.