Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Who to go with??

Hi Guys,

I'm traveling from the UK to LA in november for 14 days and I'm looking for the best place to hire a car?

I've been looking at these forums for the last couple of weeks and I'm unsure whos the best company to go for?

I will be traveling with my mate (I'm 27 he will be 28) and we are planning to drive LA to San Fran, Vegas (one day in Arizona) and back to LA

Is it better to Prepay or pay locally? Last time when we came over 4 years ago we had a cobalt from Enterprise but we are looking for something a bit bigger this time! Maybe Intermidate and Standard! What model of car could I expect? I will be landing around 3pm.

I've been looking at Alamo, National and Avis and Alamo seems to be the cheapest! What I don't understand is that National is a lot more expensive to Alamo? I thought they were the same company??!?!?

Any help would be much appreicated

Cheers

Paul
:)

I'd recommend booking (prepaying?) with a Europe based consolidator...

Those folks offer "all-in" rates that are quite competitive.. and build in the all-important CDW/LDW!

On my most recent trip I booked cars in PIT and ABQ through holidaycars.com and found the experience quite satisfactory...

I am assuming that - like those of us from the Antipodes - you don't get CDW type coverage through a credit card when renting in the USA...

The rental in ABQ turned out to be through Alamo... we were upgraded to standard/full size due to an almost completely empty lot :eek:... and that was a Chev Impala... very smooth ride.. good aircon.. GREAT boot (trunk)space...:D

Last time we booked an Intermediate it was a Dodge Intrepid.. which we also found quite decent... if a bit underpowered...