Originally Posted by
jib71
Based on your itinerary, you might want to check availability and pricing at rental locations near the railway stations in Hachioji, Otsuki, Fujiyoshida, and Odawara. From Shinjuku, you can easily go by train to those locations and start the rental there. I have a gut feeling that they might have some sporty cars in those locations.
Thanks! I followed your recommendation to check those, but unfortunately, the availability and pricing was the same. However, I'm studying whether it makes sense to take the train somewhere outside of Tokyo and pick up the car there. Between the price difference outside of the city and the tolls in the city, it might be the same total price including the train tickets, and less stressful.
Originally Posted by
YariGuy
I've got a 10-day rental reserved for Christmas from Nissan for ~¥44k, so don't think what you're getting is unreasonable. Note that this price includes only the lowest level of insurance (I think ¥250,000 deductible for damage).
I've done this once after picking up the car - instead of returning to the pick-up location, I wanted to extend the rental and return to a different location. My experience has been that returning to a different location adds a lot to the cost (my experience has been about ¥50k). In my case, since my rental was due and I was in the area, I drove back to the rental office and asked about different pricing in person, but I suppose you can do the same over the phone.
If you want to change your plans before picking up but after making the reservation, I would just make a new reservation and cancel the old one. I don't think any direct rental I've made in Japan asked for a credit card. But still, definitely review your reservation to see what the cancelation terms are.
Good to know that the price isn't unreasonable. It was so much lower than any other option I've seen, that I wasn't sure. I need to do some additional work to figure out if I want to make the reservation with the lowest level of insurance, as you pointed out, and rely on my credit card coverage, or if I should just pay for the lower CDW and NOC coverage.
Thanks for the insight on drop-off location changes, it matches my expectation that it would increase costs a lot. Right now, there's no increased cost/drop-off fee for me to pick up a car in Shinjuku and drop off at Haneda. I'll plan to make a new reservation if my flights change.
Originally Posted by
Outbound24
It's certainly worth joining (usually free) the rental car companies programs such as Avis Preferred or Hertz Gold Rewards for instance, as the price can be dramatically different comparing when you are logged in to your account or not. I've seen some huge price differences comparing logged in/out on their websites and have saved a lot of money on my current three different car rentals in Japan by just being a member of their programs.
Agreed, I've also noticed that. The Amex Platinum discount rate for Enterprise was actually quite helpful, but booking direct with Toyota and Nissan was still a better price.
Originally Posted by
Buster CT1K
My number 1 suggestion is that if you don't already know how to read Kanji/Chinese characters, please familiarize yourself with the characters for "car park," and "full." The last of these is useful if the car park is indeed already full. We drove around Fuji Five Lakes/Hakone/Shizuoka/Nikko in 2023 and we were very happy to be familiar with these characters because they are often not also written in English. In one instance, I was also glad to be able to recognize the characters for "gas station" because the other lane led directly back to the freeway with no way back into the gas station!
Thanks for the recommendation! I hadn't thought of this, but will definitely do it. I know a couple hundred Chinese characters from taking classes a long time ago, but only know a few related to busses, not cars (it was a different life stage lol). I can definitely see the value in being able to recognize/read the road signs in areas that don't have Roman characters.
Originally Posted by
bocastephen
Also have a backup navigation system with your travel companion - it's very easy to get overwhelmed or confused when driving in an unfamiliar area because the navigation systems when set to English, you get one very obnoxious sounding English lady who provides the "setup", then the voice changes to a Japanese lady who says the name of the street/intersection/freeway exit in Japanese, literally as fast as possible. Having a second person watch Google Maps along with the onboard navigation system to help visualize your next move will make things much easier.
Also be aware of parking culture in Japan - you'll be expected to always back your car into the spot, unless directed otherwise.
Definitely! The plan is to run Google Maps off of our phone, and also whatever nav system the car comes with/offers, with my trusty co-pilot helping me through that.
It's good to know about the expectation about backing up into the spot, since I never do it. I'll also do more research on etiquette/expectations on the road there before the trip.