loads of great answers here - here is my tuppence.

as mentioned on this thread already www.airnet.co.uk often has very good all inclusive prices for cars from Dollar - they are particularly good for some one way journeys for a one-day rental where they throw in a tank of Petrol for £1. Be aware though that you need to book a week in advance and have access to a printer to print the voucher off (if like me you leave it to the last minute and book it whilst you are away! How the agent laughed when I presented the voucher in the form of a digital photo of my laptop screen developed at Walmart!!)

I found a new site last weekend http://www.travelsupermarket.com/Default.asp

The car rental comparison tool found me a stunning quote for 2 weeks SUV hire over Christmas for £350 all in with Alamo (except SLI). All the other sites qere quoting nearer £600 and some had no availability at all.

Now onto insurance...

I originally used to have an Amex year round insurance policy - the product was particularly good (if a bit dear - £205) as it included North American Car Hire

(It also included very good skiing coverage on the policy)

http://www10.americanexpress.com/sif...1,12756,00.asp

I ended up dropping it though as I got an Amex Platinum card which included a year round policy for all holders. I also found it harder and harder to find very base rate car rental (at prices where the rental companies knew they would make money from the over inflated insurance rates)

You also get free SLI coverage with the Platinum card. This is particularly useful if you find an SUV rental for £350 that doesn't include SLI I believe this coverage can be extended to cover CDW too for a fee.

Final point - I still find it absurd that the rental companies continue to be allowed to rip the public off with insurance. LDW (14.99), SLI (12.99) and uninsured motorist protection (5.99) a day equates to £20 a day (+tax). That's effectively £7,000 a year to insure a sh!tty rental car and still the excess is probably £500 !!!