Hello.
I will be travelling to Queenstown NZ over the Easter long weekend. I'm looking to rent a car to pick up from the Queenstown Airport and drop it off there too.
I hear too many horror stories about car rental companies charging much higher than what they're quoted online. So I'm really hesitant about choosing a car rental company as they all seem to have some horrific reviews!
Is there anyone who has been to Queenstown and can recommend me a car rental company where you paid the price which you were quoted online? Or at least not ripped off by a huge margin?
Currently I'm looking at Omega Rental Cars as they see to have the most somewhat best reviews out of all.
FYI, I'm 25 years old.
Thank you all!
Car Rental Recommendation at Queenstown NZ?
donedeed on 14/01/2015 - 00:03
Comments
2011 I used http://www.queenstowncarhire.co.nz/ - they price matched a quote I got elsewhere.
Now seems to be some sort of aggregate website - shame, they were good, even helped me with a shredded tyre.
Just got back from NZ this weekend and hired a car through Omega. They charged the price quoted online without issue and didn't push the excess reduction on me which a lot of the other companies push for.
Got the second cheapest car they offered, which turned out to be a 2004 Nissan Tiida imported from Japan. In my case the car came with gps for Japan, with the touch screen only in japanese. The car also only had a cd player and sd card reader, no usb or aux input for the stereo, and the fm bands didn't look to pick up the regular frequencies. Luckily I brought along a bluetooth speaker, or the long drives would have been very quiet.
I was happy with them, and would use them again. Saw a lot of apex rental cars out on the road fwiw.
note on excess reduction
Most rental car companies self insure, so excess reduction is MONEY FOR JAM.
Often if they have a fleet of similar cars & one engine might be stuffed, they keep the rest for it's panels etc.
That said, don't quite understand why many seem to offer to reduce excess to $0.
You'd think some people would not care about running into things & scratching the car.
You'd think a better idea would be to reduce excess from the $1500 or whatever to $200 or $300.
We used many off airport rental car companies in the last 20 years.
Most have 2nd hand cars brought in from Japan & most were Subaru Libertys (called Legacies).
Only 3 very minor issues in all that time:-
1) some automatics had no guts - ie slow going up to ski hills
2) one time a battery cable shook lose, on corregations. Once lead put back on again worked fine.
3) filled up car night before we had to drop it off at airport. Must have been an airlock & it only filled to 7/8ths or more(it looked very close to full on fuel guage) & they charged us heaps to fill it. $10 for fuel & $40 to do it.
I rented a car with Apex last year for 3 weeks traveling both the North and South island incl across on the inter-island ferry. Was very happy with the car & service.
So do all car hire places hold a bond in NZ. All the once I have looked at hold $7500 till the return and inspection of the car, unless you get the reduced insurance premium, which is often more than the car hire.
Ive been looking at campervans, but I think it was the same for car rental as well.
Thank you all for your responses! :)
just dont use europcar to avoid any invisible hail damage charges.
if you pickup from the airport make sure you return the fuel tank brimmed to avoid the common $2.99/litre charge refuel scam for the entire tank (not what was required to fill it)
also on more important matters, do the overnight milford sound cruise!
Used Omega myself when I travelled there last Oct, was quitw happy with it and didnt encounter any issue.