New Tactic - Rental Cars Guadalajara Airport

Another of our annual battles with the "rental car cartels" at the airport and I may have stumbled on a new way to get a fairly decent price? This may not work with the older established franchises but the new Payless franchise in Guadalajara is opening an airport office this weekend. We started with the usual runaround until he got aggressive with a bundled daily price with all insurance coverages included rather than the usual a la carte BS where you end up with an astronomical daily rate. We really made progress when I told him we would be there 10 days but I would probably only rent the car for 4 days if he didn't come up with more aggressive pricing. With this pressure, he immediately agreed to lower the full coverage daily rate by $300MX. I told him that I would think about it and get back to him. He then told me that he would be there when our flight landed and promised to have a rate I would be happy with. Once again, he would be willing to allow declining all coverages except the required Supplemental Liability but the deposit on a Nissan Tiida would have been $8000 USD!

By the way, all of their cars were brand new a couple of months ago.

We just completed a 10 day rental of a new Nissan Tiida (8000km) through the new Payless franchise in Guadalajara and it went exactly as planned.  At today's exchange rate, our actual daily cost was $41.26USD/day including full insurance coverage.  Unless someone has a trick I don't know about, one cannot come close with any of the other international franchises and their a la carte pricing on insurance policies that can often add up to two to three times the actual daily vehicle rental rate.  

I had a lengthy discussion with the manager of the new location (two weeks old) at the airport and he has the ability to provide special package pricing to gain business.  I have agreed to publicize their product and make attempts to steer customers to them.  Why not?  These are basically new vehicles purchased when they established to new franchise.  These vehicles don't have geographic restrictions with the exception of Mexico City and DF.  All rates they quote include unlimited mileage.  The vehicles they have for rent include: Nissan March, Nissan Tiida, Nissan Versa, VW Jetta, VW Passat, Toyota Sienna, Chevrolet Suburban, Jeep Patriot, Toyota Hiace and Chevrolet Silverado.  

If you are visiting Mexico and want a vehicle you can drive most anywhere with full insurance coverage, please PM me and I will hook you up with the right person to get a sane rate for a rental vehicle.  The international Payless website will not even come close to the prices that the manager can provide.

Disclaimer: While I have accused people in the past of collecting commissions from referrals, I am not being financially compensated for "hooking people up" but I have agreed to accept vehicle class upgrades and am not ashamed in the least of such an arrangement!

Maybe they need to get a banner ad on Inside lakeside????

  

With full coverage that is less than we pay for car rental NOB.  Good going Cheena 

Joyfull:

The big difference here is that NOB, they are willing to accept ones credit card coverage whereas, in Mexico they want no part of it! As I have mentioned many times in the past, we carry the AMEX Premium Rental Car Insurance and even though it exceeds what the Mexican rental car company coverages, they will not accept it.

That has always been the case for car rentals in Mexico. $41.26 is still less than NOB car rentals without insurance. When we rent NOB we still have to take out the liability as the credit card companies only cover CDW.

Absolutely correct on liability but very misunderstood by most people who rent vehicles!  Credit card insurance never covers liability but some personal auto insurance policies do cover liability!

As for Mexico insurance policies on rental cars, one of the best deals that I found prior to this was Alamo's Protection Plus coverage for $35USD per day but there is a zinger - they cannot or will not tell you exactly what the coverage limits are!

Living here in Mexico full time we have no coverage NOB. It is always a challenge to figure out what coverage to take or not take when we rent a car NOB. We are named as additional drivers on our daughter's policy which we are told gives us liability. The additional cost to her is $16 a year.

Thanks for taking the time to tell us about this CG. This is good info!

Z

Just completed making a reservation with Payless at the airport. Got in touch with my contact and he extended a "promo deal" for a 13 day rental in August. Since I found the Tiida a bit small, he stepped us up to the "grande category" and extended a rate of $35/day and that includes the full package of insurance. This rate is almost $7/day lower than we paid for the smaller Tiida (depending on the exchange rate at the time).

Well done!

A bit frustrating getting past all the other "helpful types" that thought they could take care of me. No point to blowing a good contact who already promised us a better deal after the last rental. I have concluded that getting past the typical ala carte pricing on websites and getting to bundled pricing is the secret. Just for comparison, we paid $35/day just for the insurance package with Alamo in Feb of 2013.