Auckland Airport is such a hard place to get to without paying through the nose for the privilege.

We’re on holiday with family in Tahiti at the moment so I saw the trip to the airport as an opportunity to try out Cityhop to get there.

While all other Cityhop locations require to return the car to the same spot you picked it up from, when I first signed up and looked around their member booking system, I noticed that if you selected The Strand as a pick-up point, the system allowed you to drop off at Auckland Airport and vice versa. “Fantastic!” I thought – we could use it for our Christmas holiday – grab a car from their Strand depot the night before, load it up, and drive in to the airport for our 8am check-in, drop it off and fly out. Do the reverse when we get back.

Their 6pm to 8am overnight rate for hiring a car is $30 – which seemed very competitive for getting two people to the airport and very convenient in that we can load up the car the night before.

Except there were some problems:
– The airport car isn’t a swipe-in car. You need to pick the key up from the Jucy Rentals depot, your booking can’t start after 5pm. Weekdays they close at 6pm, weekends 5pm, yet this is not an option when booking. Add to that for some reason it’s not always available?
– The overnight rate starts at 6pm, not 5pm, so the overnight rate is not possible without paying an additional $15 for the hour between (5pm-6pm).

I also hit another problem. I logged on to Cityhop’s site, and booked the car – pick up from the Strand at 6pm Saturday, drop off at Auckland Airport at 8am Sunday. The system said the booking was subject to confirmation which would happen as soon as possible.

Seven minutes later I got an e-mail advising my booking had been cancelled. Five minutes after that I got a call to advise that I cannot drop the car off in a different location from the pick-up point, that the booking system was wrong, and that they’ve now corrected it by removing that option.

A quick online check showed that they had indeed removed that option. The rep who called me wasn’t sure why it was there in the first place. My guess is that someone there wanted it to be an option, but it didn’t work out, and they forgot to remove it.

Apparently I was the first person to try this which is a surprise.

Unlike the usual way of working, I had to go to the Jucy office to pick up the key for the car. And the car was a manual which could be problematic for some people (I saw it as a learning opportunity and got in some manual driving lessons with family prior to picking up the car. I’m a fast learner!).

All up it looks like Airport services are an idea that Cityhop has neither committed to nor closed down. I’m not really sure where it’s at or who it’s for.

It has potential to be a good service – all they need is a car that can be picked up and dropped of anytime like all their other sites. Perhaps a reserved parking space at the domestic terminal?

As it currently stands I’m not sure if I’ll be in a rush to use it again for Airport-related journeys.

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