usrentacar.co.uk ® Car Hire USA Blog

Hi all,

Peak season has just ended and I’ve got to say its been one of the busiest I can remember, 1000′s and 1000′s of people collected vehicles from Orlando International Airport using usrentacar.co.uk for their Florida Car Hire and now that its over I thought I’d take a quick breather and  look at the Wait Times our suppliers accumulated over July and August 2012.

Fastest Supplier From Orlando Airport

1. Dollar Rent A Car – 10 mins
2. Budget Rent A Car – 12 mins
3. National Car Rental – 13 mins*
4. Alamo Rent A Car – 14 mins
5. Thrifty Car Rental – 14 mins*

* Wait Time based on less than 10 customers posts.

So Dollar Rent A Car are the quickest in the east (well Orlando International Airport), over July and August. A 10 mins wait time is an amazing figure at the busiest time of the year so hats off to them… I would hazard a guess that the dollar express feature had something to do with this, so lets hope we can get this up and running again shortly.

Wait times are gathered using the usrentacar voucher app available on android  or iPhone devices. The statistics above are only for rentals collected in July and August 2012,  the suppliers average times are actually quicker than suggested above and can  be viewed by entering your rental details in our website.

regards,

James

Hi all,

We first launched the usrentacar voucher app back in April 2011 as a way to help customers collect their car rental without having to print of paper car rental vouchers.

Since its first incarnation the app has morphed to include our Wait Time feature, our review option and our popular car finder service. Recently we hit the 5000 downloads  milestone  so I thought I’d share some information regarding the app.

Obviously the UK is the Country that has provided the most downloads, but which other Countries like our app?

1. UK
2. USA
3. Italy
4. France
5. Brazil
6. Netherlands
7. Norway
8. Ireland
9. Australia
10. Spain

The app has provided over 2000 wait times at over 50 USA locations all of which have been embedded in to our results page to create an unique average.

The features of our app have been copied by a host of car rental companies which I guess is a compliment!?
We’ve started work on a new version of the app which we believe will again be another first within our industry, I’ll keep you posted on the new features as soon as I learn more.

I can confirm that the feedback we’ve received regarding the apps own review system has been heard and will be amended, if you have any feedback for our mobile team please feel free to comment below.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Straight out of the usrentacar.co.uk lab, we are happy to announce the strengthening of our mobile presence with the release of our first mobile optimised car hire USA site, m.usrentacar.co.uk.

The mobile site is optimised for iPhone, Windows and Android devices and is the perfect companion for the popular usrentacar.co.uk voucher app which recently hit over 5000 downloads.

The mobile site allows our customers to access our rates while on the move, the majority of the vehicles displayed on the mobile site show live availability and car rental vouchers can be accessed using the mobile site as well.

Managing Director Gavin Boswell stated

The future of travel lies with mobile development and here at usrentacar.co.uk we pride ourselves on being at the very cutting edge of technology. We see the release of our mobile optimised site as the first in a number of releases to cement our status as the number 1 USA car hire specialist.

Please feel free to test it out on your own mobile device, we welcome all constructive feedback.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Yesterday we took a peak at who, according to our wait time feature was the quickest at getting customers in their cars in Florida.

Today I thought we’d travel over to the west coast and see who’s top of the queue tree for your California car hire, we’ve based the averages on the top 3 pick up point in California.

Los Angeles International Airport

Alamo Rent A Car – 90 mins

Budget Rent A Car – n/a (no office)

Dollar Rent A Car – 16 mins

National Car Rental – n/a

Thrifty Car Rental – n/a

San Francisco International Airport

Alamo Rent A Car – 5  mins

Budget Rent A Car – 22 mins

Dollar Rent A Car – 20 mins

National Car Rental – n/a

Thrifty Car Rental – n/a

San Diego International Airport

Alamo Rent A Car – 12  mins

Budget Rent A Car – 20 mins

Dollar Rent A Car – 11 mins

National Car Rental – n/a

Thrifty Car Rental – n/a

Overall (in order)

1. Dollar Rent A Car customers on average queue for 15.5 mins in California.
2. Budget Rent A Car customers on average queue for 21 mins in California
3. Alamo Rent A Car customers on average queue for 35.5 mins in California.
4. Both Thrifty Car Rental and National Car Rental are yet to be scored.

So another win for Dollar Rent A Car who must be feeling pretty smug at the moment, the use of the Dollar express system has been highlighted to us as key to their success.

The wait times recorded above are taken from usrentacar.co.uk customers who have used the usrentacar voucher app customers are encourage to state in minutes how long they have queued for at their pick up location. Wait times vary per supplier per location and the information above has been averaged out, wait times will increase over busy periods including Easter, peak season and Christmas. Most of our suppliers offer a pre-registrationprocess designed to speed up collection.

Regards,

James,

Hi all,

As you will be aware the usrentacar voucher app has been knocking around for just over a year now. The main reason we created the app was to get rid of the countless paper vouchers our customers would have to take with them and produce at the counter, which has worked perfectly.

This week a couple of travel media outlets have picked up on one of the other unique aspects of the app, our Wait Time feature.

Respected travel tech site, Tnooz wrote this article regarding the Wait Time feature yesterday - http://www.tnooz.com/2012/05/21/mobile/car-hire-service-claims-first-with-mobile-led-technology-to-provide-wait-times/

A good piece explaining how the Wait Time system works and how we have used mobile data to increase customer knowledge.

The second article actually appears on one of my favourite sites, AutoRentalNews. Auto Rental News is a main stay of the car rental industry and has been for many years backed up by a magazine, website and trade shows. You can read their take on the Wait Times feature here - http://www.autorentalnews.com/Channel/Rental-Operations/News/Story/2012/05/USRentACar-co-uk-Reveals-Customer-Reported-Wait-Times.aspx

The article shows the wait times for Alamo, Budget and Dollar from 3 major locations and mentions our new deals with Thrifty and National.

So our Wait Time feature seems to be a bit of a hit, remember you to can add your wait time by downloading the usrentacar voucher app on IOS or Android systems for free.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Just a very quick post to mention that version 1.3 of the usrentacar.co.uk voucher app has today hit the app store.

There isn’t anything new to really announce, this latest addition is purely a bug fix. Here is a list of additions.

• App Speed – we’ve sped up the whole app experience and will continue to look at ways of making it even faster.
• Push Notification Fix – A push notification will now be sent directly to your phone as soon as your voucher is ready.
• Push Notification Modification – As per our previous post Grr stop waking me up usrentacar.co.uk we’ve amended the scheduling to be more user friendly.
• Car Finder – Improved car finder accuracy.
• Reviews – Fixed bug that stopped reviews being sent.
• Review Photo’s – we’ve altered the size of the image being sent to allow them to be automatically uploaded to the usrentacar.co.uk main site.

We have some deals going on behind the scene’s here that should see a modified version of the usrentacar voucher app being released hopefully in the next 6 months. I will keep you all posted on developments in the mean time for those of you who have not yet downloaded the app here’s a brief description.

About the usrentacar voucher app

The usrentacar.co.uk iPhone application is a free tool to help assist users with car rental bookings. The application’s primary function is to provide users with a mobile version of a car rental voucher which is used to collect their pre-reserved car rental.

The application is also an information resource for existing and new users. The application will also provide users with average ‘wait times‘ for collecting their vehicle (they can also add their own wait time) The application also offers users a chance to ‘review’ their car rental experience. The application will also provide access to latest blogs on car hire in the USA.

In the last major update the app also now includes the “car finder” feature which allows users to pin their parked car on a map, then at their leisure instruct the app to find their vehicle, the app will then plot a course back to the users parked car.

The app is free and ready to download from the apple store and google play.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Apologies for the lack of posts recently. I’ve been taking advantage of some holiday time owed by snowboarding in Austria and soaking up the sun in Orlando. Yep life’s been tough…. any way I’m back now and have a lot of posts to come, mostly regarding our eminent launch of the new look usrentacar website, fingers crossed Wednesday could be the launch date.

Back to the subject of today’s post, Grrr stop waking me up usrentacar.co.uk!! An interesting title perhaps but something that’s been bugging a few people who use our award nominated iPhone app.

One of the push notifications the app provides is to ask users to rate the app so others can get a good idea of how it works and if its useful.

Now when we programmed this particular notification we assumed people
would want to review the app while on holiday so we set the notification to activate at 8 am U.S. time. This however was a mistake as if you’re in the UK the notification would hit at around 3 am!!!!

I can confirm today we have fixed this error and would like to apologise to anyone that was rudely awoken by us asking for a review. I know how much I value my own sleep so the new time is now 17:00 UK time.

I hope this now fixes the issue and people can continue to use the app without losing sleep.

regards,

James

Hi all,

Got some great news through today from our IT guys showing that theusrentacar voucher app has now had more than 2000 downloads from the apple app store.

We released our voucher app in April of this year to make collection of your USA car hire as quick and simply as possible. Uptake of version 1 was excellent and we got some great feedback from users.

The app was also nominated for a couple of awards this year including the British Travel Awards Best Travel and Tourism iPhone/Smart Phone App up against heavy weights like British Airways and Kayak.

The original version featured

• Online voucher – pick up your car rental by showing your phone.
• Wait Time feature
• Review feature
• Blog

We launched the next version of the app (version 1.2) last month and added our popular Car Finder feature and some push and local notifications.

You can download the usrentacar voucher app by visiting the apple app store and typing in usrentacar or you can scan the QR code above.

I wonder how quickly we can get to 3000 downloads?

regards,

James

Hi all,

Last week we launched version 1.2 of the usrentacar voucher app, added our car finder feature and made providing reviews and pictures even simpler. Uptake has been great and we are now beginning to see customer leave reviews in the app store.

To date and touching wood profusely the lowest rating we’ve received is a 4 out of 5! Which as you can imagine has made us very happy indeed.

Here are a few of the review that you can view in the iPhone app store.

If the app is as good as the company then its a winning combination. I’ve been booking my cars with them for a few years and you cant beat the service they give.

Anything that reduces the paperwork when going to the US is a plus.

What a great app. Simple to use and all your information on hand.

Absolutely brilliant app. Thoroughly recommended. All the info you need plus a lot more.

Great app, simple to use, no need to worry about forgetting your voucher with this app. Average wait time indicator is also a great help.

If you’ve downloaded our app please feel free to write a review and if you haven’t downloaded it yet, what are you waiting for

Download the usrentacar voucher app

Regards,

James

Hi all,

Last week we launched version 1.2 of the usrentacar voucher app which included new additions such as the usrentacar car finder.

This weekend saw a mini explosion of downloads from all across the world, so I thought it might be nice to show the top 10 Countries to download version 1.2 of the voucher app.

Top 10 Countries To Download Version 1.2 Of The usrentacar Voucher App

1. UK
2. USA
3. France
4. Italy
5. Spain
6. Switzerland
7. Ireland
8. Kuwait
9. Saudi Arabia
10. Russia

A really interesting mix of Countries here, I’m surprised to see Switzerland and Saudi Arabia appearing in the top 10, it will be interesting to see how this changes as we draw close to Christmas.

About the usrentacar voucher app

If you are fed up with having to bother with the hassle of printing off pieces of paper to take with you when you collect your car hire USA then the usrentacar voucher App is for you.

Its simple; just download the iPhone App from the App Store and your rental voucher will be available via your iPhone, iPad or iTouch device.

But its not just an voucher App it will also give you access to some pretty snazzy information. The App will also help you find out the current average wait time to collect your car, you can also review and rates your USA car rental experience as well as keep up to date with all the latest news and info from the usrentacar.co.uk blog.

To download the usrentacar voucher app and turn your voucher mobile, please visit the App Store by clicking here.

Regards,

James,