Rental Car Review and Tips - Tahiti - Moorea - Raiatea

[ebay33]

I recently returned from French Polynesia where I had rented a car at three different locations.  They were all booked directly with the rental car agencies in advance and every single location was just a little different. Hopefully this recap will assist others that are looking to rent a car when in French Polynesia.  I wanted to use Hertz exclusively because I am a Gold Plus Rewards Five Star member, which makes it much easier and faster to complete the rental at the time of pickup. Unfortunately, I only found Hertz in the airport in Tahiti. As it turned out, I was lucky that I only found one Hertz location. 

 

First stop was Tahiti. I arrived late in the evening, so I opted to stay at the Tahiti Airport Motel and rent the car the next morning as opposed to picking it up in the evening and then driving to a hotel and parking it overnight. The hotel is right across the street from the airport, so there was no problem walking back the next day to rent the car. I reserved the car with Hertz and expected everything to go as usual, with a fast, easy rental.  I was completely wrong. First of all, upon arrival to pick up the rental car, there is a "room" with all of the rental car agencies in the room for car rental pickup and drop off.  Just entering that room was stressful.  Everyone was arguing at every counter, and it seemed as though no one was happy.  I was really glad I had my Gold Plus reservation and was just patiently waiting for the customers in front of me to wrap up their reservation.  I had no idea what was going on, but there was a lot of back-and-forth discussion and complaining.  They had the contract printed and reprinted again and again. I waited almost 30 minutes for them to complete their rental.  Finally, it was my turn. I thought it was going to be fast and easy, but alas, not so. First of all the Hertz employee mentioned that I had booked my reservation online, at Hertz.com but the benefits I had requested weren't offered at this location.  Specifically, unlimited mileage.  He quickly offered to quote a new price on a new rental reservation that included unlimited mileage, but the rental would be significantly more expensive. He really wanted to cancel my reservation and sell upgrades like mileage, insurance, etc.  I felt like it was back in the 1980's and 90's when it was so hard to rent a car. I really wanted to get my vacation started, so I just stuck with my original reservation and agreed to pay the mileage. I noticed on the invoice; the rental company was Polyrent SA and they probably just pay to use the Hertz name.  The rental itself was only $67.96 and the mileage was $86.56.  I kept the car for three days and drove about 200km.  I dropped off the car in the morning and it was a lot of bickering again in the rental car "room".  I guess you just have to be prepared for this when you rent at the airport in Papeete. The drop-off was still a lot faster than the pick-up and overall, it wasn't a terrible experience as I look back upon it, as the overall price was still only just over $150, and I drove the car as much as I wanted to over the three days.  If I had unlimited mileage, I may have driven a little bit more, but other than that, everything turned out fine.

 

Next stop was Moorea. I only needed a car for the day, so I booked it in advance from Albert Location in Moorea. I booked it via email conversations and had to pay in advance at the time of reservation. I made sure to keep all of my email communications and was prepared for any issues that may arrive at pick-up.  Fortunately, everything went rather smoothly. The rental car representative drove to the port to pick-up everyone that was renting from them that day and day.  Surprisingly, the rental cars were a bit of a drive from the port.  It was about a 20–30-minute drive. As luck would have it, I had paid in full and was ready to go, but the other renters that were in front of me had not yet made a reservation and had a lot of questions.  Since there was only one person working at the counter, I just had to wait.  Finally, I got up to the counter and my car rental was ready and paid-in-full.  This rental did include unlimited mileage.  I paid $73.71 (in advance) for the rental car.   Not a bad price for a full day with unlimited mileage and full insurance coverage.  If you need it, the address of the actual rental car location is BP 77- 98728 Maharepa, Moorea. The rental car agency drove me back to the port, this time going really, really, really fast and taking less than 15 minutes to get back to port.  Overall, this was a good location, easy to use, no additional charges, and easy to drop-off.

 

Final stop was Raiatea. I rented from Raiatea Location.  This time I reserved in advance, but they did not charge me until I picked up the car. The reservations were all made via email with this location as well. This rental was $62.34 and included a full day rental and unlimited mileage and full insurance coverage. The rental car agency has a booth at the port, but they weren't there upon arrival.  A few of the other vendors did their best to try to track down the rental car staff, with no luck.  Finally, after about 30 minutes, they showed up and everything from there went smoothly. The driver quickly escorted all of the renters from the port to the car rental agency.  This one was not very far from port.  About a 5–10-minute drive (about 35-45 minutes walking). They also drove me back to port when dropping off the rental car. This was a great location, great price and recommended to anyone looking to rent a car in Raiatea. The address of the actual rental car location is not on the receipt, so I can't provide that. 

 

In summary, I would use Albert Location and Raiatea Location again in the future.  I'd definitely try to get exactly what I want next time in Tahiti and make sure my reservation includes everything at the time of booking. I would not use Hertz again at the Papeete airport, just for the sake of trying a different car rental agency in Tahiti. At least I had no problems securing my rentals at all three locations, which is really the most important thing when planning a vacation like this.

For anyone that is interested, I also rented cars at several locations in Hawaii.  I will post in the Hawaii section on my experience with those car rentals. 

[Leejnd4]

Wow. Thank you for all of this! We're renting a car in Papeete, and I just went and checked our reservation - I booked it through Amex Travel, and it was on Hertz. And it did not specify if there's unlimited mileage - the reservation didn't say anything about mileage at all. So I looked at the possible options renting with Hertz (as if I was going to make a new reservation) and they all say "Ltd mileage"! I had no idea.

 

I cancelled that reservation (it was not pre-paid), and re-booked with Europcar. It was a bit more money, but it clearly states "unlimited mileage". And I printed out screenshots that show that it's unlimited mileage, so hopefully I won't get in a shouting match. How unpleasant that experience must have been!