If you’re a tourist or a visitor in Los Angeles, California, you may want to rent a car to make the most of your time here. The city is indeed big. There are sights to see, places to visit, people you may want to look up. Whether you’re here on business or for pleasure, you can set and keep your own itinerary if it’ll be you who’ll be driving yourself around.
If you have a travel agent, ask him or her to look up and hook you up with a good car rental service in the area. Travel agencies can save you some time and money since they are often part of some affiliate programs that entitle them to give their clients promotional discounted rates at certain business establishments, including car rentals. If you don’t have a travel agent, you probably can’t go wrong if you stick with the established brands of chain car rentals in the country. They already have their reputation to protect so you can be sure that they won’t do anything foolish that may compromise their labels, especially in a major city like LA. Here are seven of the leading car rental companies:
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National Car Rental
National, like Alamo and Enterprise, belong to Enterprise Holdings. Thus it more or less also carries the same range of rental vehicles in its fleet, including luxury cars, vans, pickups, convertibles, hybrids and fuel-efficient vehicles.
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Alamo Rent A Car
The car rental service allows you to do most of the reservation and check-in online. On arrival at the branch for the pick up, you just hand in your forms to the agent and that’s just about it. Alamo has a wide selection of cars, which which comes with a good selection of options like child seats, GPS system and advanced toll e-passes, all of which you can secure in advance via the online reservation booking process.
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Hertz Car Rental
The company offers various sizes of cars, SUVs, vans and pickups, as well as luxury, hybrid and convertible models. Its main selling point is that it can customize a car with the special features or add-ons which you indicated in the online reservation form quickly. For example, those with disabilities can book a car that suits their needs without the usual two day-prior notice. When you get to their office for the vehicle pick up, you’ll find that it’s already been adjusted according to the specifications you indicated in the reservation form.
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Enterprise Rent-A-Car
This car rental service has a wide selection of vehicles, including large vans, pickups, moving trucks, luxury cars and hybrids. It also offers options for disabled drivers like special hand controls, spinner knobs and pedal extenders. It has a straightforward user-friendly online rental system, advanced customer service and a host of other features.
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Thrifty Car Rental
One of the largest car rental companies in the world with more than 1,000 locations in 70 countries, Thrifty has one of the best business rental programs in the car rental industry, which includes small business rental, frequent traveler rental and multi-month packages. It even has special rental packages for entertainment and production companies and for government agencies. On top of that, Thrifty has a very easy to use website for selecting your vehicle and booking a reservation.
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Budget Rent A Car
The company, like the other major chain car rental outlets, carries a wide selection of rental vehicles that includes luxury cars and SUVs, pickups, commercial trucks, vans and convertibles, along with a wide range of optional addons like child seats, toll e-passes, GPS system, among others. In terms of customer support, it has a live chat feature at its website which you can use if you’re on the road and you want immediate answers to some questions.
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Dollar Rent A Car
Dollar’s fleet of rental vehicle includes compact, midsized, and large cars and convertibles, along with minivans and SUVs of varying sizes but no trucks nor any form of hybrid vehicles. This rental company has branches in all major cities in all 50 states.
