usrentacar.co.uk ® Car Hire USA Blog

Hi all,

I thought for todays topic I would quickly cover One Way Rentals (OWR). A OWR is when you collect from one location but drop off in a different location. For example collect at Los Angeles Airport, California but return to Las Vegas Airport, Nevada.

Most OWR do incur an additional charge, based on mileage and sometimes car group. A typical scale of cost would be

Approximate Charges*

Distance Cost*
0 – 200 miles $50.00
201 – 500 miles $100.00
501 – 1000 miles $300.00
Over 1000 miles $500.00

Some of our suppliers also offer addtionalfree of charge special offer one way rentals, please see below for details.

Alamo Rent-A-Car

Free one way rentals within Florida.

Free one way rentals within California.

Free one way rentals between California and Nevada.

Budget Rent A Car

Free one way rentals within Florida.

Free one way rentals within California.

Free one way rentals within Texas.

Free one way rentals within Ohio.

Free one way rentals within North Carolina.

Free one way rentals within Virginia.

Dollar Car Rental

Free one way rentals within Florida.

Free one way rentals within California.

Free one way rentals between California and Nevada.

Free one way rentals between California and Arizona.

One way rentals are always on a request basis, which means our supplier has to agree to the one way. With some suppliers this can take up to 72 hours as both rental offices have to seperately agree.

Some popular one way rentals include.

Orlando to Miami

Los Angeles to Las Vegas

San Fransico to Las Vegas

New York to Orlando

New York to San Diego

Have you ever completed a one way rental?

What was your experience?

What vehicle did you hire and would you recommend it?

Regards,

James,

U.S. Rent A Car.co.uk

Last night the Avis Budget Group entered in to the bidding for Dollar Thrifty, with a whooping bid of$ 1.33 Billion, this trumps the earlier Hertz bid of $1.17 Billion.

A letter sent to Dollar Thrifty’s top bosses from Avis Budget’s group chairman and CEO Ronald Nelson stated: “We are prepared to put forward an offer today for Dollar Thrifty that clearly constitutes a superior proposal under that [Hertz] merger agreement.”

He continued: “We are prepared to enter into a merger agreement that contains substantially the same terms as the Hertz merger agreement, but which includes removing the matching rights, eliminating the break-up fees, and increasing the commitment to secure antitrust approvals.

“In short, we believe that the higher purchase price we are offering, combined with the terms of our proposed merger agreement, makes our offer a superior one from the perspective of Dollar Thrifty and its shareholders.”

Whomever manages to purchase Dollar Thrifty will decrease the huge advantage Enterprise owned Alamo Rent A Car have on the U.S. market at present.

For those clever bosses at Dollar Thrifty who took shares in the company rather than performance related bonuses must be very happy at the moment.

Who would you rather see take over at Dollar Thrifty?

Hi all,

With peak season in full swing we are over run with new reviews from our customers regarding the suppliers service, here are a few I thought you might be interested in.

Alamo

Mr D Cook – good choice of cars.

Mr M Ayres – Meet Sally. Our BRAND NEW Ford Mustang Convertible. We couldn”t have wished for a better car! We picked her up in Virginia and left her in Boston. If you ever drive her, treat her with respect and send her our love. Enjoy.

Mr P Womack – Excellent service,great car, would recommend and use again.

Mr D Herring – They tried to charge me an $2.66/day airport user fee on top of what I had prepaid. I showed them the contract where it states that the airport fees are includede and they removed the charge.

Budget

Mr J Gardiner – A very smooth & efficient car hire experience would definitely use this supplier again.

Mr I Bennett -This website was espescially good for me as it reduced the cost of the $25 Young Person”s surcharge for 2 weeks use of a car in Florida.

Mrs B Smith – Vehicle spotlessly clean, easy pick up and drop off. Very easy to drive considering size. Overall, a problem free experience and will definitely use on our next trip.

Mr J Walker – Other than a grumpy unhelpful assistant when collecting car, we were very satisfied. We have booked through Florida car hire several times and have are will be happy to do so again.

Dollar

Mr A Smith – The car supplied was almost new with only 415 miles on the clock and in immaculate condition.The only negative comment i could make is the long wait at the desk when collecting the car but this was at 9 p.m. and there was only two people on duty.I did notice when we returned the car at 3 p.m. that there was more staff on duty and the queue was very short.This is only a minor point however as the overall experience was excellent and i would definitely recommend this supplier.

Mr G Williams – Quick and easy to use web site, prices very competetive, overall Service cannot be faulted. Collected car from Dollar desk in San Francisco, and returned to desk in Las Vegas. All documentation okay, all bookings perfect. Faultless and best service I have used for US Car Hire!

Mr K Leighton – We had a choice of vehicles from the line of SUV”s. May have helped that we arrived early in the day (9am). Service was good from Dollar, but don”t like the way that they always try to add on extra insurances. Didn”t take the “extra” cover though wether this makes me wise or stupid I”m not sure.

We are still the only USA car hire company to include reviews from real customers and now have a data base of over 20k. Thank you to all our customer who provide this invaluable feedback.

Regards,

James,

Car Hire Reviews from usrentacar.co.uk

Hi All,

Todays blog is about pages you may have missed or not seen on  www.usrentacar.co.uk which maybe of interest, hidden gems if you will.

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/usa_petrol_prices.aspx

This page allows you to see the latest petrol prices in the USA, it may give you an idea of what potential saving you could make by purchasing our gold rate.

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/pre_registration.aspx

No one likes queuing, this page helps usrentacar customers to pre-register their car rental details directly with the supplier, which should help speed up your collection time.

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/affiliate/signup.aspx

If you own a website, why not make some money out of it and join our usrentacar affiliate scheme? Our low cost prices could mean big earnings for you. More info available here https://blog.usrentacar.co.uk/index.php/2010/06/24/u-s-rent-a-car-launches-affiliate-scheme/

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/young_driver_under_25.aspx

U.S. Rent A Car was one of the first car rental companies to actively seek out better deals for young drivers, we can save you hundreds of pounds by selecting our YDP option.

https://www.usrentacar.co.uk/booking/login.aspx

This page is here to allow you to check your booking details quickly and of course to download your voucher.

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/whatsincluded.aspx

Car hire can appear to be a bit on a minefield, so on this page we clearly state what all our rentals include.

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/Compare_car_hire.aspx

Also to help, we offer this page where we compare all our suppliers in one easy page.

Have I missed any pages that might be of use?

Is there something else we should be showing or something you’d like to see?

regards,

James,

U.S. Rent A Car.co.uk

With the pound falling to a 13 month low against the Dollar, our pre-paid car hire rates represent even better value for money.

These car hire deals are only available to book up until the 31/05/10. Our lead in price of £108.00 with Budget Rent A Car is the lowest in the UK and even includes an additonal driver free of charge.

All usrentacar prices include CDW, Theft Protection, SLI, UMP and Taxes for more details please visit www.usrentacar.co.uk/whatsincluded.aspx

Don’t delay book today to grab yourself a great Car Hire Deal

About 96 percent of all the rental cars available at Orlando International Airport should now be ready for visitors in the airport’s parking garages, now that a $60 million renovation of rental car service areas is completed.

Orlando International expanded its rental car service areas adjacent to the terminal parking garages. That means more room for rental car companies to prep returned cars for their next use within the airport. The companies may then pull them into rental car spaces reserved in the parking garage to be ready for customers.

As a result, all the major agencies now can have cars ready for use parked in the parking garages, so visitors can walk over from the terminal to claim them. In the past, much of the rental car business operated from remote lots outside the Orlando International property, and many rental car customers had to board shuttle buses to go get their cars. In the past few months, Thrifty, Enterprise, Hertz and Advantage are moving rental cars into the parking garages, joining Alamo, Avis, Budget, Dollar, National and two small rental-car companies, E-Z and L&M.

There’s still a handful of independent and niche rental car agencies that prep and offer their cars at remote locations and run shuttle buses from the terminal.

The $60 million project was paid for with a special $2.50 tax levied in 2008 on airport rental cars.

Story source

Hi all,

As expected Budget have issued a price increase that will take effect from Tuesday the 26th of Jan. Budget have assured us that this will be the first and last increase this year.

Annoyingly Alamo have also come back with further increases that will come in to effect on Monday 25th.

All bookings made before these dates will be honored at the booking price, however quotes emailed will not.

Remember you can secure your rental by leaving a £50.00 deposit with the balance due 8 weeks prior to departure.

Regards,

Gavin

Hi,

Continuing my series of promoting pages that you might not have seen, this week its our pre-registration page.

We get asked a lot of questions regarding fast tracking, pre-registration or speedy checkin’s. All these options are available with U.S. Rent A Car, so as soon as you have your voucher please visit the link below.

http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/pre_registration.aspx

Regards,

Gavin

Hi All,

We are a few weeks in to 2010 now and the USA car hire picture for this year is beginning to take shape. I thought this might be an ideal time to blog about my thoughts on 2009 and the possible goings on in 2010.

Car Availability

The same as last year I’m afraid, demand exceeds supply. The problem isn’t as bad as it is in Europe but companies with the biggest fleets will use their yield intelligently to maximise profits which may see the introduction of peak season surcharging. In December 2009, over Christmas I know that certain suppliers were charging over $400.00 per week for an Economy vehicle!

Alamo

At first glance the Alamo/National/Enterprise Company seem the best equipped for 2010, they have the largest and youngest fleet. They remain firmly in the driving seat (excuse the pun) of the rental market, this was very apparent when they were the first to come out with rates for 2010, setting the bench mark for others to follow.

2009 was a very strong year for Alamo; they seem to have a very good balance between pricing and customer care, possibly the Enterprise influence beginning to take effect.

Customer services wise we saw big improvement from Alamo, their turn around rate in most circumstances was much quicker than the industry standard of 28 days. Disappointingly we did see a rise in complaints regarding Alamo agents trying to sell additional extras, the best tip I can offer is refuse everything locally and always read your rental agreement before you sign it. 

Dollar

Dollar Rent A Car has also invested in some new vehicles, so their Fleet will be a mixture of new and old. We have received the expected price increase from Dollar and at present I can’t see them breaking in to our top two suppliers list. 

Last year was very tricky for the Dollar/Thrifty group, they had to save money and one way they did this was by extending the length of time they kept hold of their fleet. Although they posted healthy q3 results the expense I believe was at the cost of customer care. I cannot remember another example of where their customer services have been so slow to react. I can easily say they have been the poorest by far in 2009. We have received reassurances that these errors have been rectified and with Dollars good track record I see no reason to doubt we will see an improvement in 2010.

Budget

Budget had a very slow start to 2009. They seem to always take a bit of a back seat and see how the market pans out. Q3 and 4 were a lot stronger for Budget and they have continued this trend in too 2010. Although I predict a price increase some time in late Feb. maybe march 2010.

Customer services wise they have improved year on yea and are slowly ironing out the little errors that frustrate us all.

Overall

2009 was an extremely hard year for all industries, I believe the talk of recovery is slightly premature and the car hire industry will take probably one more year to full recover.

I am very optimistic for 2010 and on a positive note we are already up on last years figures. In February we hope to roll out version 2 of our booking engine with additional features including a first in our sector. We have had several strategy meetings that have ended with some very interesting and encouraging results, so fingers crossed our 8^th year of trading will be even more successful than the last.

regards,

Gavin

Hi All,

Hope you are all well.

This week has been a very long, tiring but interesting week. On a personal note my third son is teething! So he’s decided to keep my sleep down to a minimum, bless him!!

On the professional front we’ve had meetings with Budget, Avis and Alamo. We’ve seen a sneak preview of the U.S. Rent A Car booking engine upgrade and?partnered up with a start up review site.

Budget Meeting

The budget meeting as far as I’m concerned went well. As we sort of guessed already prices will be going up for next year, the actual rise will probably be proportionate to the q3 results that are due around the 03/11/09, however we are thinking between a?5-8% rise. The rise is very much to do with the interest rate now being charged to Budget for re-financing, believed to be around 9% an increase of roughly 6% allegedly.

We raised our concerns regarding how budget staff are selling their “toll passes” to customers and?hope the message has got through.?Feedback from customers tells us that staffs have been including the pass automatically in the hire car and then charging locally once the customer signs the agreement. Not something we are very impressed about.

Avis

The positive outcome of this meeting was that we now have Avis at Orlando International Airport to offer. Avis consider themselves (probably rightfully) to be a premium product and so rates reflect this, however so does the service.

Alamo

Alamo confirmed that there will definitely be a price increase next year of 8% across the board. Their justification for the increase is that they are the only car rental company who is not hanging on to their fleet for another year, so in theory if you rent an Alamo car you will be guaranteed a vehicle of no more than 6/8 months old, rather than over a year as with others.

We also spoke about speeding up the process once you guys get to the U.S. and hopefully we have stumbled upon a solution, I’ll tell you more once we’ve signed some documents.

U.S. Rent A Car Booking Engine

Frank (Business Development) and I,?got a sneak preview from the IT guys of the booking engine upgrade this week. The resulting effort seems to make the engine a lot quicker and slicker. We also managed to brain storm a few new ideas to freshen up the engine and perhaps innovate again within the industry.

The car rental industry is very slow to innovate; I still can’t believe we are the only company to include user generated reviews on our site. Which leads nicely too…..

Partnered up with review site

This week we launched inconjuncation with www.rentacars.co.uk the largest car hire opinion and review site in the UK.

At present it has over 10k unique reviews, the site is in its infancy and I would predict it will probably change again at some point but we are hoping it could become the trip advisor of car hire… wishful thinking perhaps…

World Travel Market (WTM) draws nearer and I?m very lucky to be attending the Travel BlogCamp (@tbcamp on twitter) hosted by Darren Cronian of Travel Rants fame. The list of attendee?s is very impressive and although I usually dread WTM I?m actually looking forward to it this year.

That?s it for this week, have a good weekend and a happy Halloween.

?

Regards,

?

Gavin,

U.S. Rent A Car.co.uk

@gavinboswell