Thrifty Car Rental Deals for your
How to Get Around the Island
Car Rental Oahu Information
How To Get the Best Gas Prices on Oahu
Renting your Wheels (First Published Summer, 2005)
Deciding on the type of transportation you will use to get around Oahu will depend in part on where you will be staying (next chapters), what you’ll be doing and what your priorities are. I suggest, as with all the other planning, to read the entire book first, making notations as you go along, and then go back and sort it out.
The two main options are Waikiki car rentals and Oahu's public transportation system. You may have heard from a travel agent or well-meaning friend that you don’t need any wheels because everything at Waikiki, Oahu is in walking distance. True, but if you stay in Waikiki you will probably miss out the best parts of your vacation, not to mention spend much, much more on food at Waikiki’s grocery stores. So let’s take a look at how you can get around this amazing island.
Hotwire.com has some very good deals on Oahu rentals cars. At last check, less than $20 per day for mid-size!
The car rental search can easily be refined for debit card users. Clicking for “more information” on this, I am told that “the deposit amount (up to $200) will be held by the rental company. You will not have access to these funds until the vehicle is returned.”
As in any state, the Hawaii rental car company will ask you if you want to purchase collision damage waiver. You are not required to do so, but you may want to check with your insurance company to see about your coverage while driving a rental. This is to cover part of the damage done to the rental in the event you cause an accident or crash into something. If the other guy caused the accident, his insurance pays.
Tip: If you are considering a fly/drive or air/hotel/car package, and you don’t have a standard credit card, check with the car rental agency listed in the package before booking you package to see if they accept other means of deposit. A few do. Last time I checked Alamo only required pre-payment and seeing your round-trip tickets. Guess they figure if you have to catch a plane on the return date, they’ll get their car back on time! When checking on these rules, be sure to specify the location on Oahu you plan to rent the car because some of the car rental companies have different rules for different locations; for example downtown Honolulu or Honolulu Airport.
And how about the price of fueling that Hawaii rental car? There's a handy little site that will guide you to the best deals on Oahu...
To see why you may only want to rent a car for a couple days or not at all for your vacation on Oahu, check out my chapter excerpt on Oahu Public Transportation.
