Last time we came to New Zealand, we hired a camper van from another vehicle hire company and…read moreoriginally, we thought to use the same company however, it turned out there were quite a few hidden costs - such as additional fees for secondary drivers, for example. So, we did a quick search and found a few hire companies that offered cheaper hire in the Wellington area and settled on Omega. We got the car we wanted to rent (not the cheapest at $25 a day, but close to it) and there were no hidden charges. Utterly delighted, and even when we returned the car minus a hub cap - which we expected to pay for - it was waived as the caps hadn't been tied on as they should. Happy days - and happy customers, who were then dropped off at their destination of choice (I believe Omega may also offer a pick up service of a similar ilk too).

Our rent a car had been pre booked through our travel agent back in Australia so we had prepaid,…read morehad our start and finish dates and times and selected the class of vehicle we wanted so all we needed to do was fill the car with fuel when it was returned. Interestingly our Australian drivers licences were all we needed, not our International licences. We found the Wellington Downtown vehicle pick up office no problems although the Wakefield Street site did not seem to appear on the website. It was right in town so was conveniently close to our hotel. The staff was helpful and explained everything clearly. There wasn't a GPS fitted in the vehicle but fortunately we had brought our own Garmin unit from Australia so we stuck that unit to the windscreen and off we went. We would have found it difficult to navigate around the cities in particular without the GPS as the NZ signage is not as good as it is in Australia or the UK where we found the GPS a godsend. The vehicle was a Nissan Pathfinder, just right for four people and four suitcases. The vehicle was great, no problems at all in around 2,000 kilometres. Fuel economy was fine, particularly as we drove carefully considering the windy roads in NZ and the rain on many days. We were surprised at how expensive the fuel was, well over $2.00 a litre! And more expensive in the city than out in the country side. The vehicle was dropped off in Downtown Auckland at Khyber Pass Road. The drop off site was a small yard that we nearly missed. The single staff member at the small office was friendly and efficient, so no problems from start to finish. I would use Thrifty again.