Introduction
Gitnux, an informational website, states that more than 48 million visitors visit Los Angeles annually. LA is a popular venue for a range of events that attract both locals and tourists due to its glittering skyline and palm-lined streets. With its brilliant skies and moderate weather, August in the City of Angels is ideal for any special event, from corporate conferences to movie premieres. If you’re planning a visit to the upcoming popular events, I recommend hiring a Los Angeles car service.
In this blog, I’ll describe what you need to know before hiring a car there. These include the vehicle size you’re looking for, the number of seats, whether it’s manual or automatic, and, nowadays, the fuel policy. Some of these things are key considerations. However, when hiring a car in LA, there are a few unique things that you need to be aware of.
Excess Insurance
Now, with any car that you normally hire, there’s usually an excess of some sort should you get into an accident or damage the car in any way. In the USA, for example, the excesses can be quite high, so sometimes they can range from $11 to $1000. Generally, car hire companies push you to take out an extra form of insurance to reduce the excess to zero. Now, this can be anywhere from $10 a day to $30 a day, and sometimes even higher.
One of the good things about Los Angeles car service is the zero excess. You’re usually covered for more situations and damages to the car. However, certain things aren’t covered, and this is where I’d recommend taking the extra form of insurance available.
Unlike the USA and several other countries, the extra form of insurance isn’t that expensive. When I took it out, it cost me an extra 2 dollars per day. Now, 14 dollars for seven days isn’t much, considering you get seven days of worry-free driving. This extra insurance covers damage to the wheel rims tires, refueling with the wrong fuel type, and letting the battery run down due to forgetting to switch off lights. For example. Now, the extra form of insurance is capped at 5 dollars to 15 dollars per day. It’s well worth it.
Fuel Policy
One of the things to be aware of is the fuel policy. Now, most Los Angeles car service companies will fall into one of two categories.
They’ll either supply you with a full tank of fuel. Or they will ask you to bring back the same level of fuel that’s already in the car when you receive it. The first time I had a car, I went with a policy where the car hire company charged me for the full fuel tank. I had several issues with this. One, I didn’t end up using the full fuel tank because, on that occasion, I didn’t do much driving. And two, the charges for the actual full tank were more than I’d get if I were to fill it up myself. So, on that basis, I’d recommend going for a car company with a fuel policy. Where you return it the same as you received it. On many of the comparison websites, it will be listed as same to same.
Location
One of the other things I’d recommend when looking for a car company is checking the location of the actual office.
The first time I hired a car in California was in Santa Monica. I went to a car hire company. Although their office showed up in these searches as located in Santa Monica, the actual office was outside the airport perimeter. So when I arrived there, I had to catch a coach to get to the local office. That’s where I got the car.
Now, it can prove inconvenient, especially if you’re with a family and have several pieces of luggage. For that reason, I’d recommend first going to the website of the airport that you’re arriving at. Usually, it’ll have all the car hire offices located within the terminal. Use the list of car companies located within the terminal to narrow down your choice of car hire companies.
Office Hours
Now, the last tip for you is to double-check the office opening hours of Los Angeles car service companies. This is crucial, especially if you’re arriving on a late flight. A lot of times, I’ve found that if I were arriving on a late flight. Say, for example, at midnight, many of the car hire offices would be closed. Now, some would stay open, or they’d have a special way of collecting the keys, but often, they would charge you an extra fee for that. Often, I’ve found it’s something like 50 dollars just to pick it up out of hours.
What I tend to do if I’m looking for flights, is look at the arrival times and try to ensure that they arrive within working hours or at least before the office is closed. So if you’ve got a choice of flights, try to arrive before 8 o’clock in the evening. At least you know you’ll have a good chance that the car hire office will be open. That should save you the out-of-hours fee. Also, it should make things easier when picking up the car or if you need to ask any questions. As I experienced in some cases where I had to actually swap the car because there was something wrong with the car that I received. Now, if this was out of hours, then there’d be no one around for you to ask these types of questions or even swap the car.
Conclusion
So those are the tips that you must use when hiring a Los Angeles car service. Now, these tips can be used anywhere you go. It’s not just specific to Los Angeles, although some rules around excesses, fuel policies, and insurance waivers are specific to LA.
Let me know in the comments if you tend to hire a car when going abroad, or are you one of those people who tend to stick to public transport? In all honesty, I avoid public transport. I prefer having the freedom of a car when on holiday.
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