Morning All,

Any recommendations/pitfalls for Vancouver car hire?

Off in a couple of weeks…

Cheers,

Paul

Just done car trawler and rental cars for the best deal with the proper rental companies. Will know more when I pick it up…

What is car trawler?

We booked Avis through rentalcars.com, pick up and return from/to the airport, easy in and out and a lovely Cadillac to boot.

Off there on Thursday. Best deal was AVIS booked through BA! Also get free second driver as I am in the exec club, soon adds u when its a 10 day booking.
Was half the price of going direct. Booked it 5 months ago through.
Also have a policy that covers insurance excess so never have to pay their daily cost.

They will try and sneak in the usual upsell costs as they walk you to the car rather than at the desk.

Don’t forget the insurance to cover your $2000 excess, or paying the excess up front, just in case.

I booked through Economy Car Rentals, which when I got to the airport turned out to be a booking agency, who had booked me through Alamo.
I booked a Ford Escape (Kuga) or equivalent. Ended up with a Jeep Wrangler. Much bigger on the outside, not much bigger on the inside. 600km range on a tankful. My X3 does 600 miles on a tankful. Granted the price of gasoline there is $1.25 / litre rather than £1.13 / litre but still, it was a thirsty beast

Cheers all, will go and have a hunt for something suitable…

Questor will insure the excess for you, so no need to take the upsold CDW or what ever they are calling it these days ($12/day or something, vs £70 for an annual policy)

We ended up with Hertz, they were nice enough at the desk.

We hired with one of the big boys (might have been National) at the airport. We were flying with 2 x bikes and 2 x ski kit and had an Explorer booked. We were upgraded to a Pathfinder, which was great as we would have struggled with all the kit in an Explorer and they didn’t deduct anything for the small scratch I put on the bumper. 😀

Booked through Economy Car Rentals (Alamo on the voucher).

CDW insurance through Questor.

Cheers for all the hints…

We went with Avis in Vancouver a few years back, as we wanted to drop off at Calgary airport and they were most reasonable price wise. Had only booked one up from the cheapest they offered and got handed the keys to a brand new Dodge Challenger on the day! Certainly made the driving more interesting…

Quidco through Expedia 12% discount (had some special deal going on) tried every possible means and we needed to rent for 3 weeks.

Avoid pick up and drop off at airport if you can, you get hit with a surcharge.

Oh don’t forget to get your IDL as well.. should have left my car and BC license as it was!

IDL?

Sorry IDP – International Driver’s Permit

IDP? Where do I get one of them then?

Post office – need your current license, passport photograph and proof of identification and 5.50.

Got stuffed once luckily my wife still had her Canadian license.

Not sure that you need an IDP to hire a car in Canada. I hired a car a couple of years ago in Vancouver and they were happy with my UK driving licence….

The AA site says it is needed.

For £5.50 I will get it sorted.

I just browse best deals with the airport rental places and then haggle at the pick up for a better car. Often can get something nicer for little or no extra cost. Especially when you’ve got lots of kit (in my case been group with loads of luggage including skis).

IDP isn’t worth the paper it’s written on. In fact it used to be paper with a picture glued onto it 😀 . Haven’t had one in over 10 years and been driving US and Canada okay on a British licence. In fact when I did have one they looked at it and laughed. They thought I was joking and had never seen one. They had to get their manager to approve it otherwise were going to refuse it. Now we have photo licences it’s really not required and a photo licence will work as ID for bars etc.

What you may need is a check code for your licence, which many of the major rental companies now use. Need to generate a code before the trip. Then they can check the licence online.

https://www.gov.uk/view-driving-licence

We went with Dollar, booked through Argus for our hire from Vancouver to Calgary last summer.
We got a decent vehicle (bigger than we had booked), they added an extra driver for no charge and we had no problems at all.

I was there in June with just my UK plastic licence, that was fine at the Alamo desk

We hired with Avis via BA which was about 60% cost of booking separately.

Only negative was got a dodge which drank fuel. The Subaru we’d got in the same category a couple of years ago was much better on that front.

No requirement for international drivers licence

In fact it used to be paper with a picture glued onto it

It still bl$$dy is! Thanks for the digi link.

9/10 times you always get a bigger car in the states or canada, pays to have one their fast track/loyalty member cards as well

We picked up a hire car at Calgary on Sunday, no mention of IDP or check codes.

splashdown – Member
Not sure that you need an IDP to hire a car in Canada. I hired a car a couple of years ago in Vancouver and they were happy with my UK driving licence….

POSTED 23 HOURS AGO # REPORT-POST
tootallpaul – Member
The AA site says it is needed……

….that’s because they sell them I’ve used a UK and Victorian (Au) license no problem

not so sure on saying CDW is same as buying an excess policy? – maybe someone can explain it (that’s one reason I read the thread) my understanding (and I could be wrong) is that in Canada the standard insurance that comes with the vehicle is a 3rd party minimum legal cover only – CDW covers damage in the event of an accident, additional excess cover covers the excess obviously – not sure on the detail of the Questor policy but believe excess only not CDW?

Explicitly on the Aus travel site it says all Oz licenses are valid in BC and others

The ‘buy our excess insurance or pay the $2k excess now” trick seems to be standard airport car rental desk policy these days, I first saw it in Dublin in 2013, don’t remember it before that, but since then I’ve seen it in Dublin again and now Vancouver

My UK license was fine for pickup in Vancouver. I’d done a print out of the DVLA check code thingy too, but they didn’t ask for that.
If there’s still time, I now know that the Hertz loyalty card would provide for a spouse driving at no extra cost.
Don’t bother hiring the kiddy seats (if you need to), just get one at Canadian Tire/Walmart.