Cheap car hire article discussion

megamax

I'm off to Italy early next year and a friend said that car hire there is a mine field.....I was advised to photograph and make not of every scratch on any car which I hire but I am arriving at about 8.00pm so not sure the light will be that great in March.........are the car hire companies over there really that bad?

NiftyDigits

megamax wrote: »

I'm off to Italy early next year and a friend said that car hire there is a mine field.....I was advised to photograph and make not of every scratch on any car which I hire but I am arriving at about 8.00pm so not sure the light will be that great in March.........are the car hire companies over there really that bad?

Follow the advice here. Book direct and get car hire excess insurance.

AlexMac

NiftyDigits wrote: »

Follow the advice here. Book direct and get car hire excess insurance.

Booking direct might not get you the best result. For years , and ever since I stopped using HERTZ via the cheap carhire link on the Ryanair site (as the prices went up) I've used carhire3000, a Manchester-based broker with real people you cantalk to (assuming you can speak Mancunian that is). They now trade as rentalcars.com but still UK-based

My most recent rental was in italy- from Florence, and we got a great deal. As often happens, they used Avis/Budget as they trawl major local suppliers. and as there were 4 of us plus bags, I booked an interediate size car- but got upgraded free to a BMW 320d estate on arrival (in fact, I usuall book the smallest car, and almost always end up with a 5-door).

In 40-50 rentals I've never experienced the rip offs, insurance or fuel scams which others report; I do always buy annual (£40pa) or single trip excess cover from insurance4carhire for peace of mind, but have never had to use it. And their 1st search results pages show the fuel policy so you can choose full-full or full-empty depending on anticipted mileage; full-full is cheaper unless you plan to drive over 600-800km to use a tankfull

And a dummy booking comparison shows that an Avis/budget car fro a week from Florence on March 2016 is 30% cheaper with rentalcars.com than avis direct; and from the same city centre office. Booking from an airport tends to be a few quid dearer than the nearest city centre, and we found that rentalcars.com/ Avis/ Budget didn't even charge the usual 40 Euros one-way drop fee -although if they do, that's little more than the cost of a taxi to the airport for the reurn trip!

And no, I don't have sharews in carhire3000!

NiftyDigits

AlexMac wrote: »

Booking direct might not get you the best result. For years , and ever since I stopped using HERTZ via the cheap carhire link on the Ryanair site (as the prices went up) I've used carhire3000, a Manchester-based broker with real people you cantalk to (assuming you can speak Mancunian that is). They now trade as rentalcars.com but still UK-based

My most recent rental was in italy- from Florence, and we got a great deal. As often happens, they used Avis/Budget as they trawl major local suppliers. and as there were 4 of us plus bags, I booked an interediate size car- but got upgraded free to a BMW 320d estate on arrival (in fact, I usuall book the smallest car, and almost always end up with a 5-door).

In 40-50 rentals I've never experienced the rip offs, insurance or fuel scams which others report; I do always buy annual (£40pa) or single trip excess cover from insurance4carhire for peace of mind, but have never had to use it. And their 1st search results pages show the fuel policy so you can choose full-full or full-empty depending on anticipted mileage; full-full is cheaper unless you plan to drive over 600-800km to use a tankfull

And a dummy booking comparison shows that an Avis/budget car fro a week from Florence on March 2016 is 30% cheaper with rentalcars.com than avis direct; and from the same city centre office. Booking from an airport tends to be a few quid dearer than the nearest city centre, and we found that rentalcars.com/ Avis/ Budget didn't even charge the usual 40 Euros one-way drop fee -although if they do, that's little more than the cost of a taxi to the airport for the reurn trip!

And no, I don't have sharews in carhire3000!

Your argument fell at the first hurdle. Booking via Ryanair is not direct. In fact you'll find there are often different T&C attached to booking that way.

Next, I'll take a look at your Florence illustration...when I find the time.

NiftyDigits

AlexMac wrote: »

Booking direct might not get you the best result. For years , and ever since I stopped using HERTZ via the cheap carhire link on the Ryanair site (as the prices went up) I've used carhire3000, a Manchester-based broker with real people you cantalk to (assuming you can speak Mancunian that is). They now trade as rentalcars.com but still UK-based

My most recent rental was in italy- from Florence, and we got a great deal. As often happens, they used Avis/Budget as they trawl major local suppliers. and as there were 4 of us plus bags, I booked an interediate size car- but got upgraded free to a BMW 320d estate on arrival (in fact, I usuall book the smallest car, and almost always end up with a 5-door).

In 40-50 rentals I've never experienced the rip offs, insurance or fuel scams which others report; I do always buy annual (£40pa) or single trip excess cover from insurance4carhire for peace of mind, but have never had to use it. And their 1st search results pages show the fuel policy so you can choose full-full or full-empty depending on anticipted mileage; full-full is cheaper unless you plan to drive over 600-800km to use a tankfull

And a dummy booking comparison shows that an Avis/budget car fro a week from Florence on March 2016 is 30% cheaper with rentalcars.com than avis direct; and from the same city centre office. Booking from an airport tends to be a few quid dearer than the nearest city centre, and we found that rentalcars.com/ Avis/ Budget didn't even charge the usual 40 Euros one-way drop fee -although if they do, that's little more than the cost of a taxi to the airport for the reurn trip!

And no, I don't have sharews in carhire3000!

Your argument fell at the first hurdle. Booking via Ryanair is not direct. In fact you'll find there are often different T&C attached to booking that way. For instance; Full/Empty instead of Full/Full.

Next, I'll take a look at your Florence illustration...when I find the time.

So... Firenze Airport 1st of March to the 8th

Rentalcars:



Hertz direct:



So Hertz direct is slightly more expensive. Though Hertz has 8% cashback and rentalcars 5%.

So closely run. I would still book direct. But using a broker is still viable when you can see the rental company involved and the T&C is clear.

bullinn1

Hi chaps ... I'm an infrequent hirer ... eg one holiday a year in Spain. I need a two week rental at Girona airport - in the past I've used various companies, generally, without any real problems. Hertz were excellent for a few years but have pulled out of Gerona now. Firefly (a subsidiary of Hertz) were OK until they doubled their prices so I used Enterprise last year and they were excellent but they also have nearly doubled the price of a small car for 2 weeks ... why ?

Anyway ... to my point ... has anyone any experience of booking a car on arrival, wandering around the various desks and taking the best deal ? (second week of June so shouldn't be too busy) !

Regards Roger

Pjeff

Hi
Looking to take out an anual policy.
Noticed one (CHEW!) which included a CDW.

Am I misunderstanding something as I thought the excess policy was all about covering the gap between the car hire insurance and its excess.

Any help appreciated.

Thanks

Pjeff

rogertb wrote: »

Hi chaps ... I'm an infrequent hirer ... eg one holiday a year in Spain. I need a two week rental at Girona airport - in the past I've used various companies, generally, without any real problems. Hertz were excellent for a few years but have pulled out of Gerona now. Firefly (a subsidiary of Hertz) were OK until they doubled their prices so I used Enterprise last year and they were excellent but they also have nearly doubled the price of a small car for 2 weeks ... why ?

Anyway ... to my point ... has anyone any experience of booking a car on arrival, wandering around the various desks and taking the best deal ? (second week of June so shouldn't be too busy) !

Regards Roger

I booked with doyouspain this summer (load of crooks!) and they mucked up my ticket - thought I'd try booking direct at the counter - very much more expensive!

Warning - I also tried booking online whilst in the airport - doyouspain took my money but the bookling reference was not delivered until the next day (despite the within 1 hour stated on the website) and was never refunded!

I would DEFINITELY recomend booking in advance - I think that Martin makes the point that between a quote 10days before the flight and 1 day before the price had gone up by a factor of four!

eDicky

Pjeff wrote: »

Hi
Looking to take out an anual policy.
Noticed one (CHEW!) which included a CDW.

Am I misunderstanding something as I thought the excess policy was all about covering the gap between the car hire insurance and its excess.

The CDW itself always involves an excess, for which the hire company will offer you (push you to buy) cover at the counter at pick-up. Or you can buy it separately in advance - usually much cheaper, but the hire company will block a substantial amount on your card to cover it.

hybernia

Not sure if I'm in the correct thread or not, so apologies if this query wastes others' time! Hubby and I travel a lot and are well used to car hire scams in Europe as well (though less frequently) in the US. We used to use an British broker based in Dereham, Norfolk, which most recently has won Which? Best Buy awards, but our experience hasn't been that good latterly and nowadays I find myself questioning the calibre of several of the rental companies from which that particular broker derives commission fees (TripAdvisor has proved a useful resource).

Anyway. We're due to travel to Almeria, Spain, in May. On previous visits we've flown into Almeria airport itself and used Hertz (excellent), but now find we're best off flying into Murcia San Javier due to the ludicrous departure times ex Manchester of Thomas Cooki. Monarch isn't much better.

We thought we'd use Hertz in Murcia but there isn't one -- or rather there is, but it's an office in a hotel foyer in the town, not at the airport. And it's closed Saturdays and Sundays (we're outbound and return on Sundays.)

We've looked, again, at the broker we've used before -- the Dereham one -- but the prices don't impress and the cheaper offerings are from companies which don't fill us with confidence, either. TripAdvisor now features several favourable reports about Luzcars, a family business that's been established in Murcia for more than 15 years. Has anyone heard of them / used them?

Thanks.