Kiwi Car Hire

[JohnK]

Are you renting from an Airport?

e.g. AKL has a NZD30 levy on car hire pick ups.

Yes the airport levy and 12.5% GST could easily make up more than half the cost of the car hire. I have booked a car for 1 day in AKL through Budget in September and the rate is $34.67 for the day and when you include the levies and taxes it works out to $72.75. Even if I take into consideration the valet parking and petrol costs I still come out in front of the NZ$55 taxi fare each way from the airport.

[thomasclark]

hello
its great information. now many agencies are offering cheap car rent. anyone can book online.

[Skyring]

I hired a couple of cars in April. Had to get a party of six from Picton to Christchurch via Hanmer and Kaikoura.

First off, if you are travelling with a partner, leave them to retrieve the luggage and run for the car rental places. The ferry gets in, a dozen other people will have booked cars, and you want to be ahead of that dozen, rather than unlucky Thirteen.

Second, join the frequent driver scheme. I'm in Avis's Priority system, and my car was waiting for me right outside the office. It costs nothing to join, you enter details of credit card and license on the internet and when you collect your car, they just hand you the keys with no bother.

Unfortunately, they had run my two bookings into one, cancelling the second. But they quickly came up with another car for me.

Driving in New Zealand is pretty straightforward. Half the time there's only one way to get to your destination. Nevertheless, I can heartily recommend hiring a GPS with the car. Like as not the previous renters will have plugged in tourist destinations, the rental dropoffs, the airports. All the places you need, without the bother of entering the street addresses. And if the places you need aren't there, you can search for your hotel or restaurant from the popup menus.

Road trip to Paradise

[straitman]

As I posted on another thread it's always worth having a look here.

Standbyrelocs.com