USA car hire advice NY - Maine

natarli1

natarli1

Member
Anyone have any tips re: US car hire? I'm looking at whether or not it's best to hire a car to go from NY to Maine (via somewhere like Boston) over 6 days at the end of next month.

Best price I have found is £411. Does anyone have any advice as to whether this is reasonable - no idea what I should be paying (think I found it on Kayak) or if I should just be looking at bus/train?

Obviously a car would give us more flexibility and I'm fairly sure NY-Boston would be fine and probably just as easy on public transport I'm just thinking more about exploring places out of Boston (poss Salem) and then Boston to Maine as well as getting from Maine straight back to JFK for an evening flight.

Thanks in advance
 
The one thing to consider is car parking. Even if you're in a hotel don't assume you'll get free parking. You could end up paying another small fortune to park the thing if not careful. Might be better to use public transport/Uber and possibly hire a car for a day to visit Salem etc?
 
We did it the summer before Covid hit but rather than drive from NY we took a train from NY to New Haven and then picking up our car at New Haven station, drove across Connecticut, Rhode Island and down to Cape Cod, quite stress free, we ended up dropping the car off in Boston and getting the train back to New York. We booked via Angus Car Hire but can’t remember how much unfortunately.
 
goalscrounger said:
The one thing to consider is car parking. Even if you're in a hotel don't assume you'll get free parking. You could end up paying another small fortune to park the thing if not careful. Might be better to use public transport/Uber and possibly hire a car for a day to visit Salem etc?
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We stayed in Motels en route, so no parking charges and rented a cottage in Cape Cod, so again, no parking charges, then we dropped the car off as soon as we got to Boston, as we knew we wouldn’t need it but yeah, hotels could be charging excesdively.
 
That doesn't sound too bad given the current situation.

Car hire prices the world over have rocketed since we started emerging from lockdown. Right at the very beginning car hire companies dumped their fleets for obvious reasons.

Now due to the semi-conductor shortage they're having difficulties replenishing.
So supply and demand equals higher prices.
 
You really need to consider what insurances that comes with. Sometimes the base rental cost doesn't include insurance that covers you properly, so if you get a slight scratch on the car they will have your eyes out with excess charges.
 
If you don't return the car to the same place that you rented it, normally you'll pay a surcharge. You also pay surcharges for renting from US airports. You pay huge parking charges when staying at NYC and Boston hotels.

On the other hand, getting around the rural parts of New England states is much easier with a car.

The best advice I can give you is to rent from somewhere near JFK (but not JFK) when you have finished in NYC, then return the car there when you are done. Valley Stream and Lynbrook are close by, easy to get to and from JFK.
 
No way is 6 days enough for NY to Maine. We did Boston-Maine-Cape Cod-Boston in 2 weeks. And that involved some very long long drives. Maine is beautiful but it's a long way to drive.
 
Try Alamo brits, used them for 2 Florida trips and a Las Vegas trip albeit prior covid. Cost me £100 for 3 days in a convertible Ford Mustang 5 years ago, heard the prices are crazy now.

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italianjob said:
You really need to consider what insurances that comes with. Sometimes the base rental cost doesn't include insurance that covers you properly, so if you get a slight scratch on the car they will have your eyes out with excess charges.
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This is 100% correct. I live in NY and have driven to Maine loads of times. The traffic between NYC and Boston can be grim. You will need a car to get the best of your trip outside of NYC and Boston . In those cities I would not drive . One option may be looking at getting a train or a bus between New York City and Boston then you can pick up a rental car from Boston something like that.
Re renting cars, I’m in Florida now as I type and I’ve a rental car. There were problems with getting rental cars a few weeks ago but it seems to have subsided now. I have a rental and we got it with no problems.
Actually this afternoon we managed to see a rocket take-off from Kennedy space centre and It was quite a sight.
Enjoy your trip
 
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We very rarely booked our Hotels along the way on our many road trips, it adds to the excitement of the trip and have never failed to find a bed along the way.
 
I can't help with USA car hire, but I did some research on booking a car for the weekend here, to go to a Boro game. It was £95 per day so £190 for 2 days. Friday 12 noon to Monday 9am. It was for a petrol Corsa. There was good insurance cover, no additional insurance was required. Unlimited mileage. They are a local vehicle hire company to me, normally with a decent number of cars, but they only had 1 left. Enterprise were around £105/day. I could save around £85 by using a hire car instead of my own over a weekend, but not £190.

Prices have shot up for hire to reflect prices shooting up for new cars. The car I bought new in 2014 for £9k is now around £16k and probably on a long waiting list.
 
edinboro said:
No way is 6 days enough for NY to Maine. We did Boston-Maine-Cape Cod-Boston in 2 weeks. And that involved some very long long drives. Maine is beautiful but it's a long way to drive.
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It is all we have unfortunately! Flights are booked
 
the_holgate_roof said:
We did it the summer before Covid hit but rather than drive from NY we took a train from NY to New Haven and then picking up our car at New Haven station, drove across Connecticut, Rhode Island and down to Cape Cod, quite stress free, we ended up dropping the car off in Boston and getting the train back to New York. We booked via Angus Car Hire but can’t remember how much unfortunately.
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We did almost the identical run a few years ago. We didn't like Boston and it was a bit sparce. A few years earlier we did from NYC on the train to Washington and 10 days driving through Savannah and Charleston that was stunning.
 
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