UK Car hire help urgently needed please :-)

littlewren

Hi,


I wasn't quite sure where to post this, so please feel free to move it if it's in the wrong place - but could you then let me know where it's gone! lol


We are going to Cornwall soon and want to hire a car with automatic transmission as we usually do, for 3 days, from around 11am on the 29th September to approx. 5.30pm on the 1st October. We have done this for a few years running but this year the prices have really shot up and I'm stressing out trying to find the cheapest deal or find a deal that offers money off with a voucher code.


We need to collect and return the car at Falmouth Marina, North Parade only - some are available to collect from Truro or elsewhere nearby but this is no good for us.


Of course the prices are much more expensive because we need an automatic car but I wonder if anyone can help please in my quest to find the cheapest car hire for those 3 days?


The 'cheapest' I've found is £163.20 which is with Car Hire 3000 (now known as Rentalcars.com) but I really need a cheaper price as this is still steep compared with last year, when we paid £120.


If anyone could help, that would be great. :-)


Many thanks in advance.

Buzby

Your options are very limited. With only a single location, you are only getting the pricing from the firm providing service at this location - probably only the one.

A broker is not being given any chance to widen the search, and if the prices are indeed going up (due to demand) the chances for discount vouchers seem slim, as these only appear when they want to stimulate dens d.

macman

It's not that auto trans is more expensive, it just limits the number of vehicles available, as they will tend to be larger cars-or maybe a very limited number of smaller ones.

wealdroam

With a little bit more joined up thinking, you could've bought train tickets from Sandy to Truro, got the hire car and driven the ten miles or so to Falmouth.

As you have already bought the train tickets, perhaps getting a bus, route 88, or train from Falmouth to Truro to pick up the hire car would be a possiblity.

runningben16

littlewren wrote: »

We need to collect and return the car at Falmouth Marina, North Parade only - some are available to collect from Truro or elsewhere nearby but this is no good for us.

Why is your required pickup address so specific? A quick google suggestes the only company on North Parade is Europcar - so you're stuck with them, regardless of price.

WestonDave

Enterprise will do one from Kernick Road in Penryn for £90.90 for the period - even allowing for a taxi each way from your chosen point to there its going to be cheaper surely?

littlewren

wealdroam wrote: »

With a little bit more joined up thinking, you could've bought train tickets from Sandy to Truro, got the hire car and driven the ten miles or so to Falmouth.

As you have already bought the train tickets, perhaps getting a bus, route 88, or train from Falmouth to Truro to pick up the hire car would be a possiblity.

Hi wealdroam, thank you for your reply. We're not having the hire car straight away, we want to book it 3 days into the holiday.


The only reason we don't want to go into Truro to pick up the car is time restraints. We did that once before, some years ago, and wasted half a day. The car wasn't ready, there was a problem with the paperwork, we weren't impressed. We know Falmouth Marina, where we've been collecting the car from and it's much more convenient for us.

littlewren

runningben16 wrote: »

Why is your required pickup address so specific? A quick google suggestes the only company on North Parade is Europcar - so you're stuck with them, regardless of price.

Thank you for your reply runningben. Rentalcars.com (used to be Carhire 3000O also operate from there, we've been with them before, but their prices have shot up. Also, National Car Hire, but again they're pretty expensive.

littlewren

WestonDave wrote: »

Enterprise will do one from Kernick Road in Penryn for £90.90 for the period - even allowing for a taxi each way from your chosen point to there its going to be cheaper surely?

That's interesting Dave, thank you, I will look into that. It's a pretty good price and Penryn would be ok.