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

Morning all and happy New Year,

With 2014 firmly into its stride we’re beginning to get information regarding the car hire USA Fleets for 2014. First to send me the information is Dollar Rent A Car.

Industry experts (and myself) believe 2014 will be a very interesting year for Dollar,  their parent company Hertz hopes to have them full integrated into their system within quarter 1 which will mean that a company which had total  access to roughly 170,000 vehicles in the U.S. will now have access to approximately 700,000 cars. What does this mean? Well it should mean we’ll see a lot more competitive and flexible Dollar Rent A Car.

We’ve already been witness to the “Hertz effect” here at U.S. Rent A Car, average user review scores have risen year on year and an amendment in their customer services department has seen a massive increase in response times, which we hope will continue over 2014.

Dollar Rent A Car Fleet Guide

Now as it states above this is only for guidance and is not a guarantee of make, model, luggage capacity, MPG etc but it does give a great indication to what vehicle types you can expect and in which category. The most important one for us as its the question we’ve asked the most, is the convertible category…. and it looks like Dollar Rent A Car will again have the most Ford Mustangs on fleet for 2014.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Back in 2012 Dollar Rent  A Car were one of the only suppliers that required customers on our Silver rate to pre-purchase their fuel upon arrival. Customer’s rightly didn’t like this as airport petrol prices can be more expensive than from a station.

Therefore after a lot of badgering from ourselves, they amended their fuel policy and introduced a new ruling in August. This fuel policy required the customer to purchase the prepaid fuel from the supplier as usual however the customer could receive a full refund if they produced proof of a receipt from a petrol station within 10 miles of the airport showing the car to be refuelled fully.

Customers reacted warmly to this new policy and its been running successfully for just under half a year but both ourselves and Dollar weren’t totally satisfied. With 2014 approaching and Hertz very firmly in the driving seat (excuse pun) Dollar Rent A Car took another look at their petrol policy and have decided to revise it once again. This time I think they’ve got it spot on!

So as of the 01/01/2014, any customer collecting a Dollar Rent A Car vehicle booked with us, on our silver rate will not be required to pre-purchase their first tank of fuel on pick up. The vehicle will be collected with a full tank of petrol (or close to full) and the vehicle must then be returned at the same level. Failure to return the vehicle at the same level will result in a charge to your card for the fuel and a small service surcharge.

The prepaid fuel option locally will still be made available to customers and Dollar point out that the prepaid option does have its benefits;

• Saves time upon return
• All charges on one receipt
• No having to stop to purchase gas on return

Here at U.S. Rent A Car we’re just happy that Dollar have introduced a much easier and customer friendly way to petrol. We definitely believe this has been influenced by Hertz and hope this continues.

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

Being a company that specialises in providing Car hire in the USA is a tricky thing logistically, not only do you have to be competitive, have great locations and purchase the correct amount of vehicles (not supplier wants cars sitting around) you also have to provide great customer service.

Today’s post is about 5 things I think customer want that would make the perfect car rental supplier.

Pricing

The old adage “you get what you pay for” rings true in car rental. I think customers would pay a little more if they were guaranteed a higher level of service. If car rental company A is £40.00 more expensive than car rental company B than I think its only fair that the customer gets £40.00 worth of better service.

Makes and Models

We can never guarantee make or model of  the vehicles our suppliers provide, they buy from a selection of manufactures and therefore they can differ location to location. This has always been the case.

What the suppliers could do though, is provide more than one make or model that are likely to fall into that category to give the customer a wider idea of the likely model they will get. It would be pretty easy to manage, as the supplier will already have this information stored within their systems.

The advantages are pretty clear, the customer is able to select the correct vehicle to suit their needs and for the supplier it adds a opaque quality that is missing.

Quicker Queues

Pet peeve for everybody, Queuing!!!

It really isn’t that hard to speed this section up, we live in a word of high speed wifi. I recently wrote a post about how I would improve that car rental office, if we have to queue at least make it interesting and above all quick!

Completely Eliminate Hard Sell

Although hard sell tactics are very rare, just that fact that a small minority of staff do this leaves a very bad taste in customers mouths and promotes a negative vibe towards collection.

We’ve always been a big supporter of rewarding staff based on customer services instead of sales. Is it ever worth selling a customer something they don’t require and losing them forever?

Open Up

At the moment we (U.S. Rent A Car) have access to certain parts of the suppliers inventory and booking process. It would make things a lot easier if the supplier opened up more of their information to us. For example Rental Agreements, in this example if we had access to this information after the customer had signed we could make them aware of any additional charges that were due. It would also speed up customer service queries and lighten the workload for the suppliers CS team.

These are just a few basic idea’s on how to improve the car rental experience. I’d love to hear what you think and if you have any ideas of your own?

Kind regards,

James

Hi all,

I know this sounds like an April fools gag but Hertz have developed technology that they will look to roll out to 220 of its car hire USA locations that will greatly reduce its use of water in the maintenance of its fleet.

Hertz have hooked up with Green Team Partners LLC a company devoted to tackling problems with water conservation to  develop a non-toxic, biodegradable and hyper-concentrated waterless car wash formula and dispenser.

Hertz Chairman and CEO Mark Frissora said;

Managing one of the largest car rental fleets in the world requires a significant amount of car washing. Moving to a waterless car wash system is another innovative way Hertz is addressing both its sustainability and business needs.

Max Krumer, president of Green Team Partners added;

We were very excited to bring our processes and products to Hertz and even more thrilled when Hertz adopted our waterless detailer program for its fleet. To see a large organization put such great emphasis on going green and investing in sustainability efforts is amazing, and we’re glad to be part of Hertz’s efforts.

How does it work?

Car’s can be washed with 6 to 8 ounces of the new environmentally friendly, fully biodegradable solution. Once the solution is sprayed onto the car, the specially formulated molecules lift dirt particles from the car’s paint. It takes approximately 8 minutes to complete the process and will save 130 million gallons of car-wash water annually.

Impressive stuff from Hertz, granted not the most exciting post I’ve ever written but I thought it was important to feature car rental companies trying to counterbalance their global footprint.

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,

Hot on the trail of yesterdays 3 U.S. Rent A Car pages you may have missed comes today’s offering.

3 things you may not know about USA car hire.

Additional Driver for Free

Yep that’s right, in California (pick up only) all our suppliers offer an additional driver free of charge within the Silver rate. The additional driver does not have to be named at the time of booking as their details will be required locally. The additional driver must still adhere to our terms and conditions, for example they must be the holder of a full licence.

Free One Way Rentals

Within California or Florida picking up in one location and dropping off at another (within the same state) is free of charge. Generally suppliers like to charge an additional fee but we have negotiated some additional benefits.

We also have a few suppliers that offer free one way rentals between Nevada, Arizona and California (vice versa) ask our reservations department on 0845 226 8523 about which suppliers most suit your trip. Alternatively you can use our location finder to check one way rental prices.

Young Driver Policies

Paying the young drivers surcharge locally can work out to be very expensive, the local charge is generally $25 plus tax per day per driver, but can be more depending upon pick up location.

Through a couple of our suppliers we can offer the young drivers package which can drastically reduce the cost involved for young driver in the USA.

I hope some of our readers can take advantage of these unique special offers and hopefully in the future we can announce some more.

Regards,

James

Hi all,

usrentacar.co.uk is a massive website now with thousands and thousands of pages. Making all these pages easy to find is pretty hard, we try our best but we’re pretty sure some of our better pages are being missed.

So today I thought I’d point out some of the more interesting pages that I believe might aid you in your car hire USA search.

Location Finder

An innovation we first introduced on 2012 and was quickly copied by our competitors. The location Finder serves two purposes, firstly it allows you to type in an address, for example the address of your accommodation, and the location finder will show you the closest car rental offices to that address. It’s great for customers collecting from city locations.

The second part is the One Way Rental finder, the purpose is quite simple, enter your pick up location and your desired drop off location and the finder will display each suppliers local charge for this. Can be really helpful as one way prices can differ per supplier.

Page: http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/locationfinder.aspx

Car Rental Reviews

Almost 10 years ago we started collecting USA car hire reviews from customers regarding the service our suppliers we’re offering, we were the first car rental company to do this and therefore have the largest database of independent car rental reviews.

The obvious part of the review service is that it gives you a great idea of what to expect locally but one of the hidden gems is the car rental make or model. We ask each customer to tell us which vehicle they received locally, this allows us to build up a database of vehicles housed in each category which although is no guarantee it does help our customers select the category which will most suit their needs.

Page: http://www.usrentacar.co.uk/reviews/all-supplier/all-vehicles/within-12-month/all-offices

Pre-Registration 

One of the pet hates of all car renters is having to queue to fill in documentation and collect car details.

Most of our suppliers offer a pre-registration system to speed up the  process locally. We’ve added all these systems under one page.

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

I hope you find at least one of these pages useful and we’ll continue too add to them to make car rental as simple as possible.

Kind regards,

James