usrentacar.co.uk ® Car Hire USA Blog

Hi all,

As we all know Disney (Magic Kingdom, Epcot, Animal Kingdom & Hollywood Studios) is the most popular theme park in Florida it attracts millions of visitors every year from all around the world, so much so they had to build their own hotels!

One questions I get asked a lot is, what’s the best way of collecting a Florida car rental if I’m staying at the Disney resort and I don’t want to collect from the airport?

Well our supplier Alamo Rent A Car have you covered here, they operate an office based within the heart of Disney called Disney Car Care. Now none of our suppliers offer a delivery service, so you will have to head to the office but here’s the good bit, Alamo will collect you.

Alamo run a shuttle service  that will pick you up from any Disney hotel and take you to the car care centre where you can complete your rental agreement and grab your car hire. Not only that but when you’ve completed your rental the shuttle will take you back to your Disney accommodation.

We advise anyone wanting to use this service to call the Disney car care office at least 24 hours before your pickup day to arrange collection. Please be aware that in busy periods this service may not be available.

You can call Alamo’s Disney Car Care on 407-824-3470 or alternatively you could ask your hotel to give them a call

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Its heads down and full speed ahead into 2014 and what a year we’re expecting. The USD is as weak as I can remember and that can only be good news for holidaymakers.

In todays post we’re going to take a quick look at some of the things we’re looking forward to this year and how they could affect USA car hire. We’ll start with the car suppliers themselves.

Car Hire USA

This year promises to be a very interesting one, Hertz purchase of Dollar Thrifty has really set the cat among the pigeons, my sources tell me that Hertz hope to have completed fleet synergies by the end of quarter 1.

What does this mean you ask!?

Well it means Dollar Rent A Car, traditional competitors of Alamo, suddenly have more of a level playing field to play on, in theory they’ll go from access to 100k vehicles to access to 700k vehicles. This means competition for rentals just got interesting and we’ve already seen some price movement within the market.

How this could affect the market?

We now have 3 major companies controlling the whole of the U.S. Market. Pricing will be watched closely by the governing bodies, who fear that with just 3 companies consumers could be squeezed for additional funds. The rise of spartan brands like Sixt, Fox and perhaps a new Advantage should make sure the market stays competitive.

The Wizarding World of Harry Potter – Diagon Alley

When Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter initially opened in 2007 the theme park industry lost their minds… It was a massive success, it increased footfall in to Islands of Adventure immediately. It was publically and privately a massive success.

Phase 2 is set to open this summer (our friends at Orlando attraction tickets are guessing 18th June) and will feature a Gringotts Bank Coaster and a real working Hogwarts Express, the buzz surrounding its opening is fever pitch. Universal expect it to be a massive hit!

How will this affect car rental?

Well in layman’s terms, its going to be mental! We expect car rental for summer 2014 to sell out, every car, every category. The buzz around Diagon Alley isn’t just strong in the UK, its strong everywhere…

The Brazilians Are Still Coming

Back in the day the UK were the number one visitors to Florida outside of North America, those days have gone through and Brazil is now leading the way. Million upon Millions of Brazilians are holidaying in Florida.

How will this affect car rental?

Its simply supply and demand, although the Brazilians don’t hire the rental vehicles for as long as brits who average about 12 days per hire, they still collect vehicles from key locations like Orlando and Miami. They also tend to holiday at the same times we do, more people collecting vehicles.

So 2014 looks set to be a bumper year and we expect car rental to sell out in the peak periods, Easter, Summer and Christmas. Remember you can book your Florida Car Hire with just a £50 deposit and the balance due 8 weeks prior to departure.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

We get it, you’ve just spent 9 hours on a flight, you’re tired, you don’t want to queue for your hire car and then drive the 30 mins or so to your accommodation! But what you do understand is that to really get the most out of your Florida holiday you need the flexibility a car gives you.

Don’t fear you don’t have to return to the airport, our suppliers offer numerous downtown or city locations where you can collect your vehicle, granted they don’t hold the same amount of fleet as an airport location but if you pre-book your Florida car hire then vehicle will be there waiting for you.

Today’s post will detail the nearest pick up locations to the main Orlando Theme Parks.

Magic Kingdom (1180 Seven Seas Dr, Lake Buena Vista, FL 32830)

The closest office to Disney’s Magic Kingdom is with Alamo Rent A Car and is their Disney Car Care location which is approximately 7 mins away.

Universal’s Islands of Adventure (6000 Universal Blvd, Orlando, FL 32819)

The first location you can see pinned in blue and yellow is the Alamo locations Four Points By Sheraton – 5905 International Drive, Orlando, florida it is approximately 7 mins away by taxi. The second location is a Dollar Rent A Car office, International Palms Resort, 6515 International Drive, Orlando depicted by the red and blue pin this location is 6 minutes away by taxi.

SeaWorld Orlando (7007 SeaWorld Dr, Orlando, FL 32821, United States)

The closest office to SeaWorld Orlando is actually the Dollar Rent A Car location that was also nearest to Universal Studios, International Palms Resort, 6515 International Drive, Orlando which is 10 minutes aways by taxi.

The estimated distances are taken from google maps and if we add more suppliers these nearest locations could alter if so I will post again.

Kind regards.

James

Hi all,

It’s a busy time of year here at U.S. Rent A Car, we’re in full negotiations mode with all our suppliers and a few new one’s. The feeling here is that 2014 is going to be a busy one and most of the suppliers are speaking about next year in very positive terms, which makes a nice change after the 7 or so years.

We’re working on a few new things ourselves, we’ve just signed off a new design for our specialist Florida Car Hire site which when completed will look pretty impressive, we’re talking about a redesign for usrentacar.co.uk which we may start work on in quarter 2 of 2014 and we may well open a few dedicated website for other global markets.

With car rental fully on our minds I thought I’d display a few positive reviews about the service being offered by our current suppliers. The reviews below are the last 5 100% reviews received by ourselves, they are all based on pick up’s in November 2013.

Mr A Hardie collected from Sixt Rent A Car out of  Orlando International Airport.

Quality vehicles at an economical price

Mr S Lydall collected with Alamo Rent A Car from their Disney Car Care location.

Picked up from Disney car care centre. Never any pressure selling from there, and they send a van to collect you. Dropped off at the Dolphin which took minutes and was handy for where we were going next. Car was a good size for two of us and was very clean.

Mr W Statham collected from Dollar Rent A Car our of Las Vegas International Airport.

Having shopped around this was the first time we used this website,it wasn’t until we collected our vehicles that we could see the quality of the cars we had booked,we had an excellent experience at the check in desk the staff were very helpful and friendly, Good value for money much cheaper than using travel agents for vehicle hire. Would use again and would certainly recommend to friends

Mr C Van Kleef collected with Dollar Rent A Car from their Kissimmee downtown location.

exellent!

Mr D Ward picked up with Thrifty Car Rental from Orlando International Airport.

Excellent staff at the arrivals desk. Paperwork completed very quickly, pre paid for the fuel which was as cheap if not cheaper than outside the airport. New model car with all the usual refinements on. On returning the car it was again quick completion of the paperwork by the friendly staff.Would certainly use usrentacar on our next visit to Florida.

I love reading 100% reviews, it makes me smile its exactly how we think every car rental should go.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Apologies if you’ve heard me mention this several hundred times but here at  usrentacar.co.uk we contact every customer after rental via email to ask them to review the service our suppliers have given them.

Part of this review asks them to name the make and model of vehicle they’ve collected within the category they booked. Today I thought I’d go through the most recent reviews (last 3 months) and post the most common vehicles collected in each category.

As different vehicles may be available at different locations I’ll be basing these reviews on Orlando International Airport and including Alamo, Dollar and Sixt only.

*Please note the makes and models  listed are not guaranteed, the information above does not take in to consideration upgrades.

An interesting mix of vehicles, I’ll be keeping an ear to the ground regarding fleet for 2014 and will of course update you asap.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Last week representatives of U.S. Rent A Car attended the World Travel Market (WTM). WTM is a 4 day long exhibition held at Excel in London where suppliers and buyers meetup to discuss the previous years work and how they can increase business in 2014.

Each industry has a different approach to WTM and what they can get out of it, for USA car hire companies its a good chance to meet new suppliers and nail down some deals. Here’s what we got up too.

Sixt Rent A Car

Our first meeting was with Sixt Rent A Car who were obviously delighted with the numbers we had produced for them. As a first year supplier on usrentacar.co.uk I think they were a bit shocked at how many rentals we can send. This actually coincided with one of our concerns; can Sixt provide enough vehicles for the amount of business we can send?

Sixt are probably the fastest growing independent car rental company in the U.S. at the moment their strategy of growing via franchises seems to be working well and they continue to grow and add to their Fleet. They were confident they would have the Fleet to maintain our growth.

Alamo Rent A Car

Next up was a meeting with Alamo Rent A Car, always good to meet up with these guys, not only as we have a great working relationship but they are also fans of this blog

As always Alamo are keen to receive even more rentals from us and from early talks we could be looking at some additional product in the shape of prestige vehicles and opening up in to alternative markets.

Budget Rent A Car

Its been a strange year with Budget Rent A Car lots of behind the scene’s politics that have kept them from being sold on usrentacar.co.uk. Talks at WTM went very well and we hope to have them back on sale in the first quarter of 2014. We’re still talking about what type of product we’ll be offering.

Dollar Rent A Car

2014 looks to be the first year that Hertz will play a more hands on role in the running of Dollar Rent A Car, we are expecting a merging of systems and fleet which should see a much smoother process.

We’ve been talking about adding additional product from them including perhaps adding their high end brands but we’ll need to see if this is something our customers want.

Misc

We met with a few other suppliers about the possibility of adding them to our site, but on first impression we weren’t convinced that they could offer the basic level of service we would expect. You get what you pay for…

We’ll have post WTM meetings with all these suppliers to see where we go from here, we will of course keep you post via the blog.

regards,

Gavin

Hi all,

There are  lots of customer satisfaction surveys covering the car rental industry but none are held in such esteem as the  J.D. Power Car Rental satisfaction survey. This will be the 5th year we’ve displayed the results of the survey on the U.S. Rent A Car blog but its been reviewing car rental satisfaction for over 18 years.

The survey is a great indication of how consumers view USA car hire and a great matrix for showing price v’s service.  This year more than any other the old adage “you get what you pay for” has never rung so true, with car rental customers who based their choice on price were the least satisfied with the service they received.

Key Points

Overall Rankings

A few things need to be remembered when looking at these stat’s. Firstly they are purely based on domestic customers the way a domestic customer is serviced is totally different to inbound customers, secondly all the suppliers that appeared under the top 3 all secured higher marks than the previous year and thirdly with Hertz purchasing Dollar Thrifty and four of last years entries not even making the survey due to low samples the industry average is misleadingly high.

However even with that taken into consideration its still a great result for Enterprise, congratulation to their team who I know work extremely hard.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Usually around this time of year I take a moment to check the U.S. domestic rates to see how they will impact on car hire USA over the christmas period but we’ve been so busy here that I haven’t had the time, then we got an email through from suppliers warning that this year could see Florida Car Hire especially, hit an all time high so I thought I better do a bit of snooping.

I visited 4 supplier sites and searched for a 7 Seater Minivan picking up on the 20/12/13 and returning 1 week later. These were the domestic prices (not prepaid prices);

Alamo Rent A Car

As you can see one weeks rental will cost $495.00 plus tax taking it above $600 per week!

Budget Rent A Car

With Budget we couldn’t even get a quote, they were fully sold out for the dates we required!

Dollar Rent A Car

Dollar Rent A Car at least have vehicles available however for the Christmas period you’ll be asked to pay $1400.49 per week!!!

Hertz

Just under a $1000.00 per week with Hertz… it does have unlimited mileage though

So as you can see Christmas pricing in October is already going through the roof and literally just at the time of writing this we’ve had confirmation that Dollar Rent A Car will be imposing a peak season surcharge of up to 108% for pick up’s between the 19/12/13 and the 31/12/13 in Florida.

So if you’re looking to get Christmas car hire USA, i’d advise getting a move on before all our suppliers following suit and raise their prices.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Yesterday’s post regarding photocopied driving licences proved to be extremely popular, for 2013 it was the most read article in one day. It got us thinking that perhaps we should focus on the typical questions our reservation staff get asked and one of the main questions is;

I don’t have a credit card, can I still Rent A Car?

For the majority of our suppliers, being the holder of a major credit card is crucial, it is used within the validation process when you collect the vehicle and is required at almost all locations.

If you are under 25 and you are looking to take advantage of our young driver packages, the lead driver will have to be the holder of a major credit.

If you are looking to collect with Sixt Rent A Car, Budget Rent A Car, Thrifty Car Rental or National Car Rental at any of their locations, the lead driver will need to be the holder of a major credit card.

Are there any exceptions?

If you are collecting from Orlando International Airport then our supplier Alamo Rent A Car will accept a VISA debit card for the security deposit, however if you are collecting with them at any other location you will require a credit card.

Dollar Rent A Car appear to be leading their rivals on this front, at present you can use a VISA debit card to collect your vehicle from almost all of their 260 location across the U.S.

How much will they block on the card?

Generally the security deposit is approx. $200 per week, this does vary per supplier and per location. See terms for more. This amount is taken on an imprint of your card, the imprint is destroyed upon return of the vehicle. Please note that the security deposit is not an excess. Funds may be deducted from your account for items purchased locally, for example child seat rental. Your card will also be debited for any traffic violations you may incur including toll violations which will also come with an administration fee generally $15.00.

What happens if I don’t have enough funds to cover the deposit?

Then unfortunately the supplier does hold the right to refuse you the rental. As a prepaid car hire usa company we pay the supplier in advance for your rental so in this situation we would not be able to refund you. Please note that U.S. Rent A Car cannot amend any details to a booking once the pick up date has passed.

With more and more people shunning credit cards we hope other companies will take a leaf out of Dollar Rent A Car’s book and accept VISA debit cards, I’m sure they will.

Please note: The information in this article were correct at the time of publishing, car rental suppliers terms and conditions are subject to change at anytime, please make sure you read our terms and conditions before making your purchase.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

A week has passed since we broke the alterations to the Florida senate law to our customers regarding UK drivers needing an International Driving Permit.

Since then we were one of the first to confirm that the Florida senate had frozen the alteration while they investigated it further and would not be penalising UK drivers for not having an IDP.

So what have we learnt?

Well obviously the first thing we’ve learnt is that the Florida law makers definitely didn’t think this one through, not only has the introduction of the IDP been met with amazement in the UK, but also in Canada where the majority of the pressure to alter the law has come from.

The second thing we’ve learnt is the value of car hire USA brokers, it wasn’t the suppliers who found out about this law (Alamo, Budget, Dollar etc), it was car rental brokers, I personally emailed each and everyone of our suppliers warning them to the alteration and asking for their official stance.

On the day we ran with the story and notified all our customers I called each supplier pretending to be a customer and asked them one very specific question.

Do I require an International Driving Permit to hire in Florida?

These were my replies.

Supplier: Alamo Rent A Car

Date: 13/02/13

Time: 15:35

Agents name: Bob

Answer: Bob immediately stated that an IDP was not required. When I informed him of the rule change he popped me on hold to double check and then returned to state that again no IDP was required.

Verdict: Bob was wrong.

Supplier: Budget Rent A Car

Date: 13/02/13

Time: 15:51

Agents name: Natalie

Answer: Again Natalie hadn’t heard about the IDP change and told me it wasn’t required. When I told her, she popped me on hold and returned to state that Budget wouldn’t stop me from renting the vehicle however if I felt it was necessary to have one then I should get one. She’d didn’t know where I could get one from though.

Verdict: Although she wasn’t fully equipped with the information I thought her advise was ok.

Supplier: Dollar Rent A Car

Date: 13/02/13

Time: 16:00

Agents name: Charles

Answer: Actually I first spoke to their customer services department, who stated they didn’t know anything and sent me to reservations. Charles stated I definitely only needed a UK driving licence, again I informed him of the change in law, he popped me on hold to verify. Charles returned some time after to confirm I definitely did not need an IDP.

Verdict: Charles was wrong.

On Friday after we posted and contacted our customers to confirm that the amended law would not be actioned until further notice, I repeated the above calls.

I obviously didn’t get through to the same people but each of the suppliers then confirmed I would require an IDP…

What did I learn? 

When picking your Florida Car Hire supplier, remember its not just price you should be thinking about, its also the after care…

regards,

James