Well folks, I have unfortunately returned to reality and have decided to post my Alamo experience prior to my trip report, in consideration of the many posts regarding Alamo prior to leaving.
At ogg, I hopped off the plane, and went straight to Alamo while gf waited for luggage.
Line at Alamo was about 50 deep when I arrived, but within 15 min, bus after bus continued and soon the line wrapped three times indoors, and ended up all the way out of the building! I waited about 40 minutes and finally exited to inspect the convertible Sebring I had reserved for $241 for 10 days inc tax/fees.
As expected, the car had dents, dings cigarette burns in the seats and while the interior was gray when new, it now looked like the hills of Kahana -- kind of a brownish/caca-red color. Not wanting to deal with the pandemonium which was now in (%26amp; out..) of the building, I decided to pick up the gf %26amp; try to hit the Alamo location at the Kapalua Airport for an exchange. I was thinking that at least we%26#39;d now easily be able to recognize our luggage, after all the red caca in the car stained it the same color... Oh, yea...when driving straight, if I let go of the steering wheel for even a split second, the car is gonna make a VERY sharp right 90 degree turn.... alignment is totally @#%%26#39;ed!
Arrived at Alamo, Kapalua at 5:05pm...they close at 5. A guy walks out of the door %26amp; says they%26#39;re still in there, just knock %26amp; they%26#39;ll let me in.....yeah, right!! 5 minutes of door banging gets me nowhere, so off to Kapalua Villa%26#39;s to peruse our accommodations...(incredible!)
Saturday morning I call Alamo%26#39;s management number %26amp; get right through to a mgr, who say%26#39;s to take the car to Kapalua for an exchange. I decide to call before wasting any more time, %26amp; mgr at Kapalua Alamo says he only has 13 cars there, compared with several thousand in Kahului, and only convert is Sebring with 26k miles - mine had 24k... So I call back mgmt line, and am immediately placed on hold...waited 15 min %26amp; called back....soon as phone was picked up, I shout ';DON%26#39;T PUT ME ON HOLD!'; The lady says Francis, the mgr I spoke to earlier, is with a customer....then she put me on hold...then the call was disconnected... This continued for about an hour, until my gf (I was just a bit perturbed by now..) finally got a different manager on the phone. I told this guy that Alamo rented me a vehicle that never should have left their lot for safety reasons, let alone the abhorrent condition of the car...I told him there were no cars acceptable cars at their West Maui location, and that Alamo needed to send me a NEW vehicle immediately!
The manager took my contact info %26amp; asked where I%26#39;d be in an hour or so....I told him that I%26#39;d already spent WAAY too much time dealing with this vehicle issue %26amp; to have the driver call me when he got to West Maui, so I could let him know where to drop the new car. Also, I told him I wanted a credit for all of this hassle. He said no problem, they%26#39;d credit me for a day, and the car would be in West Maui in about an hour and a half. We decided to make it simple, and just walked down to lounge at the Kapalua Ridge Villa%26#39;s pool.
The tow driver called me about an hour later %26amp; I told him to bring the car to our villa...he arrived about half an hour later with a nearly new (4500 mi) Silver Mustang convertible on a tow sled. He dropped the car with a new contract, and loaded that piece of $hit on the sled %26amp; left. The Mustang was quite nice, with a peppy V6 and, surprisingly, about the same overall room as the Sebring.
When I returned the car, lo %26amp; behold...there was no credit on my receipt, so I walked in (fortunately there was no one in the ';problem'; line..) %26amp; the desk agent credited me for about 30 bucks... Was this worth all the hassle?? No way....but I did end up with a nice convertible for 10 days (well nice for 9 days %26amp; the $hit mobile for one..) for $211 bucks including taxes fees etc....
I suppose I could%26#39;ve used a different company, paid an extra several hundred bucks and possibly avoided the above fiasco....but, in the end...I had an amazingly wonderful trip %26amp; I am too happy to be upset !!! ;-)
Oh yea, I almost forgot.....no roaches!!
Alamo....the bad, the worse and the ugly...
other than this ho,w do you REALLY feel about alamo?
some experience i guess all the alamo troubles haven%26#39;t quite subsided,its too bad this fiasco took so long out of your vacation time to be .......shall we see somewhat resolved.
Alamo....the bad, the worse and the ugly...
Ok, you guys are really scaring me, I rented an Alamo car for July through costco, because the extra driver is free ( trying to save a buck, actually $140). But now I%26#39;m not sure. Are the lines always that bad? And what about returning them, are the lines long? Are all the cars a pile of junk?
When I was planning my trip to Maui last Oct the whole rental car thing got me going and I kept checking Costco, but the rates changed daily and I was comfortable with the rate I got from (I think this is right) Hawaii Discount Rental Car or something like that. You get brand x, which was thrifty in my case, so I joined Blue Chip with Thrifty and emailed my membership # so it was put on reservation. Low and behold, we arrived on Oahu and while everyone was waiting in line, I went to the ';blue chip'; desk and we were done in no time. Get to Maui, same thing, but this time they don%26#39;t have a car I reserved, so would I accept a convertible at no extra charge? Sure. Vacation stepped up a notch at no cost. I will never use another car rental on Maui other than them. No extra driver cost either. Very easy to reserve and and pick up. Nice vehicles that were clean and very road worthy. No battles with the management.
I%26#39;m sort of scratching my head when people want absolute dirt cheap car rental rates, but are then surprised when the cars are cr@p. Apparently with Alamo, you often get what you pay for. Personally, after reading all of these negative posts, I wouldn%26#39;t book Alamo now for a free car. It%26#39;s just not worth the money you save to be constantly worrying about your car rental, and believe me, I%26#39;m a someone who travels on a budget. Pay a little more, and have peace of mind and fewer hassles.
I totally agree that you get what you pay for. We rented a convertible last month through priceline and got Alamo.
It was also total junk with roaches. Our friend rented his Alamo car through Costco
and it was much better. We paid $195 total for the week and he paid $50 more than us for just a mid sized car. Seems like most of the complaints have 3 things in common: Priceline, convertable and Alamo..Live and learn
We go to Maui spring break every year. Our car rental combo is Alamo, SUV, Orbitz. No problems - clean new SUV and quick in/out. Maybe it%26#39;s my Texas drivers license, so the Alamo folks like me? Have you tried shouting out %26#39;Remember the Alamo%26#39; when you enter the rental facility?
LOL!! ----maybe we%26#39;ll try that Sat. We will be picking up minivan and am anxious to see how it goes!
An experience like that can make it hard to get in a vacation mood. I%26#39;ve had enough hassle at OGG car rental counters and their slow baggage claim and the parking cops keeping people from picking up passengers that I just skip OGG these days and fly into Kapalua airport from HNL. I come from the west coast and our nonstops get into OGG too early to check in to the hotels anyway. And flying mainland to HNL to JHM is usually WAY cheaper. And then you get to fly into cute quiet little west maui airport. Baggage claim takes maybe 3 minutes. The car rental complex on the main road sends a driver just for you. If I get to miss the whole Kahului scene and the long drive to the hotel I%26#39;m a happy guy.
we are currently in maui and we got our mustang conv. red.. with only 4000 miles on it.. great car I waited in line 10 min.. did go staight there to avoid the rush from our full plane. we exchanged the first one right after starting to drive it out of the parking lot.. brakes were grinding.. easy exchange and took about 10 min. it worked for us... maybe if your flight arrives later in the day you would get a bigger line and less ';wonderful';cars... they do have a ton of 07 mustangs they just got in :) we would rent again from them. it is cheap and we love the convert.
dfhauk: We are flying HNL to Kapalua for the first time this year. We have a reservation through National. We get in at about 7:30 a.m. So, I just get off the plane, call National, and they send us a car? Hope its that easy!
As for Alamo, we have our own horror story. A couple of years ago, we left the condo key (which is a friend%26#39;s condo) on the keyring when we returned the car. We called immediately upon landing in Orange County and they had already re-rented the car. After days and days of calling the OGG Alamo office, I finally called the 800 customer service number who immediately had someone secure the key and mail it back to us. The people who worked at the office gave us a continuous runaround. I won%26#39;t rent from them again either.
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