Car hire in Holland

benjus

I'm planning to fly to Eindhoven to spend a couple of days in Holland/Belgium in mid June. I've looked at various websites but it's coming out a bit on the expensive side. The cheapest I've found so far is £67 (I don't care what the car is).

From looking at a couple of websites it seems that there is a premium charged for short rentals - in fact, on one website it actually appears cheaper to rent for 3 days than 2.

Does anyone have any tips on getting around this and finding a cheaper quote?

Also, do they typically charge extra to allow driving into Belgium?

spiro

People on here have commented on the extra cost of taking a rental car across a border even if its only a few miles so expect to pay more. Most car hire I have every found always gets cheaper the longer you book. Imagine if everyone did 1 day bookings they would be for every filling out paperwork and valetting cars. Rent one for 3 days and take it back a day early giving some excuse. You save money and they may gain if the can rent it out for the other day as 2 peple have paid for the same car. Also with such a short booking check the fuel policy, you dont want one that offers full-empty unless you planning on doing a hugh amount of miles in 2 days.

benjus

Thanks for the advice... the site where 3 days is cheaper than 2 wasn't the cheapest quote I found, so I'll probably just go with the £67 for two days - unless the cross-border thing is expensive. From what I've seen the policies for cross-border rentals vary depending on which countries are involved - even within the EU.

I will double check the fuel policy - I always thought of full-empty as a Spanish thing (and even the Spanish firms waive it for short rentals), but it's worth checking...

breezeway

there is only one car rental place at Eindhoven airport and that's hertz so all the car companies rent via them

we have usually paid about 60 quid for 3 days hire and there are no restrictions as to where you drive (that I know of, we went into Belgium each time) - we have hire the cars via expedia and multi search sights such as travelsupermarket.

I would also suggest that you have a tomtom or similar as the roads around the airport are all being built and the signs are rubbish, getting out of the airport carpark is bad enough ;-)

benjus

Thanks - I guess the lack of competition isn't helping the prices... the cheapest quote was Hertz via Ryanair. I've tried the others you mentioned.

I have a TomTom and will certainly be taking it - I've become a total convert to SatNav!