Served by six airlines that offer non-stop flights to 19 destinations, Boise Airport (BOI) is located three miles south of the city of Boise in Ada County, Idaho. With BOI airport approaching a full century of commercial flights, the airport is laying out plans for how it will operate in the future, which includes an ambitious upgrade of its rental car centre.
Boise Airport (Photo: Daniel X. O’Neil via Flickr / CC BY 2.0)
As of today, the rental car agencies are situated on the first floor of BOI airport. Cars are picked up from the car park just outside the west end of the baggage claim area. It’s worth noting that because of the airport’s relatively small size, rental car agencies’ hours are based around flight schedules.
To determine which rental car companies offer the best options across our three categories (Most Affordable, Best for Luxury, Best for Minivans), TravelMag.com carefully conducted a series of searches on the services, fleet availability, customer reviews and policies of all the agencies at BOI. Here are our findings:
Your best bet for cheap car rentals at BOI airport appears to be with Alamo, but there’s very little in it. No matter what dates you choose, you’ll find all the other rental car agencies are within three of four dollars of Alamo’s cheapest car, the Mitsubishi Mirage. Indeed, your choice of agency might well depend on your preferred type of car. At BOI airport, Alamo specialises in compact Asian cars, with their Nissan Versa and the Hyundai Elantra being the next most economical. For an alternative fleet, we’d recommend Thrifty that has both the Ford Fusion and the Volkswagen Jetta for rent at less than $50 per day on most dates.
Alamo has the lowest prices in the premium/luxury car category, just edging out Enterprise and Avis. Alamo’s cheapest ‘premium car’ is the Nissan Rogue – not everyone’s cup of tea, but a solid and comfortable 5-seater all the same. If Alamo or Enterprise (part of the same company) don’t have your preferred car available then Avis owns a comparable fleet of cars and is only marginally more expensive. Among their premium cars, you’ll find the Ford Escape, Ford Taurus, Chevrolet Impala, Chrysler 300 and the Lincoln MKS.
Alamo, and sister company Enterprise, consistently have the cheapest daily rates on minivans, with the Dodge Grande Caravan and the ubiquitous Ford Transit in among their fleet. The only other two minivans available are the Nissan Quest and the Chrysler Town and Country leased out respectively by Thrifty and Avis. Both minivans have similar prices. If you’re in a quandary about which to choose, then it’s worth mentioning Thrifty’s superior online customer feedback, scoring an excellent 8.5 out of 10 at the time of writing.
