Rental car from Vancouver to Calgary Intl Airport - insurance?

We use http://www.rentalcars.com/en/ for renting cars overseas, and have for years.

Not necessarily the cheapest, but they are efficient and good to deal with, and all necessary insurance is included. Their website is totally international (so none of the discrepancies that you have described). BTW the large price difference might be related to a drop-off fee being included on one site.

You can use a booking website, for example, carsscanner, and you'll get the best rates as well as advice on traffic rules peculiarities and insurance. Good luck!

We use rentalcars.com as well. A vote of confidence for them from us.

Just be careful to find out which company will actually be handling the rental. The third party companies like the ones mentioned above don't have their own cars - they are simply acting as agents for the big companies (Hertz, National, Enterprise, Budget, Alamo etc.). And with the big companies, not every location offers the same quality of service since they can be run independently. For instance, the Budget at Vancouver Airport gets terrible reviews, while Budgets elsewhere get good reviews. I would want to know who is renting me the car - a cheap price isn't worth it if you get all sorts of hassles.

For insurance, check to see what you need. Sometimes the insurance cover on your own car includes rental coverage, but probably not for coming to Canada. Also some credit cards include rental insurance.

Finally make sure you price includes all the fees, like drop off, extra driver, young driver (if you are under 25) and taxes etc. And if you are using a third party site, check their offer against what the rental agency offers direct. Make sure you are actually getting a deal. And check to see if you have any discounts through other memberships like HI Hostel, automobile associations, credit cards etc.

Also, if you are from the UK, Ireland, South Africa, Australia or New Zealand, try Canadian Affair - they offer one way rental in many Canadian locations without a one way fee and get good reviews.

Good advice above ... a bad rental car choice can be a big disappointment on a trip, whereas one dud flight, hotel, or meal, is over very quickly.

We have found rentalcars.com (formerly carhire3000.com) very good to deal with, and hassle-free. There is absolutely nothing hidden in the quote, and we do not get hit with any extras at the pick-up point or later.

We take the basic insurance cover included in the quote, but no more, since we have credit card coverage as well. The one thing we do do is check the car for dents, scratches, and broken plastic bits, prior to driving off, and have them noted. We also do a couple of dummy bookings, to compare the airport versus downtown rental prices.

The only downside of using the brokers is that they basically stick with the majors, so a smaller brand like Canadian Affair recommended above, will fly below the radar.

Also rentalcars.com includes customer feedback on the website, so concerns such as mentioned above (budget in YVR) are reflected in the rating. For what it's worth our last few rentals in YVR have been with Alamo (via rentalcars.com) and they have given us good service.

To clarify, Canadian Affair is a broker - they use cars from the big companies. But they seem to set themselves apart by not charging the big one-way fees for many routes, and seem to get very positive feedback.

Fair enough ... will have a look. Sometimes the US operators charge no one-way fees, but the daily rate can be higher. And some markets don't ever charge them outside peak season (the LA, SF, Las Vegas triangle, for example).