Renting a car in Manila.
I have been wanting to check out Baguio for sometime now. The idea of cooler temperatures, mountains, and nature sounded like just what I needed.
I decided that renting a car seemed like the best idea. The only other option to Baguio is by bus.
Researching car rentals in Manila is not an easy task like in the US or EU. Obviously not a lot of foreigners are driving around in the Philippines. There are some local rental companies but I wanted to stick with the big American companies thinking if anything went wrong I might have a better recourse of action.
A good starting place for your research is CarRentals.com which brings up Avis, Hertz, and Budget. Other companies that have rentals in Manila are National and Europcar. When I was looking Avis consistently had the best prices.
I went directly to the Avis.com website and reserved a car. I decided to pay extra and get a full size car which was a Toyota Camry. Here is how the cost broke down...
Rental for 4 days.
3,313.40 php per day = 13,253.60
Collision Damage Insurance
300 php per day = 1,200
Tax = 433.61
Total bill = 14,887.21
They also require an extra deposit amount that they add to your initial bill and then refund your card after you return.
Deposit = 5,954.88
Total my card is charged initially = 20,842.09 php
I would have not paid for the collision damage insurance as my American Express card covers car rental insurance. However me being a dumb ass I did not realize my card had expired last month. Damn. I had to use my Visa debit card so I added the insurance.
Picking up the car is a bit of a pain in the ass as you have to go pick it up and Terminal 1 of the Manila airport. And what a shit hole of an airport that place is, rated as the worst major international airport in the world.
You have to go outside the main terminal to a building that has all the car rental kiosk in one place. From there they get all your details and then have some one pick you up and take you to the parking lot where they keep all the cars. You will proceed into the Avis office which is a shitty trailer.
The process is a bit time consuming and be prepared to fill out a lot of paper work. The whole process took about 45 minutes. After all was said and done I was driving out of the parking lot in a really nice Toyota Camry and feeling pretty good about it.
An advantage to using the rental companies at the airport is they are open 24/7. I purposely picked up the car at 11pm so that traffic would not be terrible.
I was honestly a bit nervous about returning the car. I didn't know if they were going to be dicks about it and try to keep my deposit or find things wrong with the car. But it really could not have gone smoother. I returned the car, they looked it over, filled some more paper work, and they gave me a receipt giving me back my deposit. In total I was out of there in under 30 minutes.
While no where near the seamless process you find renting a car in the US it was still good enough. I was overall pleased with using Avis and will be using them again on my next road trip.
Coding*
Some cities have "Coding" laws. Basically each car depending on the last # on your license plate is not allowed to drive 1 day per weekday from 7am to 7pm. You need to be aware of this. Here is more info...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unified_Veh...on_Program
When you rent a car you need to know which day your car is "coding". Avis was very clear in explaining this to me. Because I was only renting for 4 days Wednesday to Sunday they gave me a car that was coding on Tuesday so it was not a problem.
There is also a few places you are not allowed to take the rental car such as Bicol, Banaue, and Atimonan. You are also not allowed to take it off the island of Luzon to other islands.
FYI:
When talking with the guy at Avis he said be sure to always book online as renting directly at the Avis office in Manila is much more expensive.