I have family visiting, so I used a reward day to rent a midsize SUV for cruising around the island in slightly more style than my beat up old beach truck. I paid the extra $5 to upgrade the reward, plus I picked up the LDW since it's unclear whether my CC (United Explorer Visa) applies to rentals unless you use it to pay the base charge.

Arranging the pick up was a little annoying - I hoped for street parking of my own vehicle along Ala Wai, but ended up settling for parking in Ala Moana during the day. Since Ala Moana supposedly tows vehicles left overnight, we then went back that night and drove both vehicles back to my place. For the drop off, we drove both vehicles down, and they stayed with my truck over at the dead end of Ala Wai while I did the drop. That made it easy to drop the car, walk down Kalakaua, and cut over to where they were waiting.

Anyway, after waiting about 15 minutes in line, I was offered the choice of a Mazda CX7 now or a Hyundai Tucson in 15 minutes. We were already running a little behind the timeline I wanted, so I opted for the CX7. It was reasonable, but not great - I'm tall (6'5), and my knee rested a little uncomfortably against the center console while driving. Visibility was good, and even though it was claimed to be a 4 cylinder, it had enough oomph to handle Honolulu freeways. It had about 3400 miles, looked to still be in pretty good shape. No particular amenities like Sirius or anything.

There was one big annoyance - after we got up to the North Shore, we realized there were ants crawling around inside! It's getting to be their nesting season, so I assume a queen ant flew in and set up shop under the driver's seat within the past week or two. Since I live here, I've learned to be pretty tolerant of random bugs, and I didn't feel like raising a fuss about it (though I did warn them at return). I hope they deal with it before it goes out with a tourist, though!

For those who are interested, our itinerary:

Pick up at 10 (actually 10:40 by the time we got through line and out)
---Dole Plantation
---Lunch in Hale'iwa (garlic shrimp truck)
---Cruise down to Kaena Point, stopping at various beaches to sightsee)
---Go back to Hale'iwa and look around some shops
---Cruise down to Kahuku, stopping at more beaches
---Pick up dinner at Kahuku Grill (the coconut shrimp was great!)
---Drive back to Sunset Beach, eat dinner while watching the sun set over Kaena Point
---Cruise on around to Kailua, cut across H3 after messing up my turn to get to the Pali, get stuck in traffic on the H1