 Poster: A snowHead
|
Just done a little exercise.
Cost of hiring a mid-size car (Band C) (focus/peugeot308/renault captur) for 1 week from 10:00 on w/c 28/03/15 on the Avis UK site.
£168.99 Lyon
£187.87 Nice
£213.22 Munich
£232.97 Geneva (F side)
£281.03 Salzburg
£328.56 Barcelona
£395.35 Geneva (CH side)
£421.39 Zurich
£468.80 Milan (Band D as Band C was a small car)
£579.30 Turin (Band D as Band C was a small car)
Quite a difference.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
and on Holiday Autos (anything to put off going out into the blizzard and starting to shovel snow) a Skoda Oktavia Estate is £231. On the Europcar website a Focus is £389.
Which just goes to show...... need to shop around. 
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
Simple supply and demand. Book car out of Faro airport in January and it will cost around £120 for 10 days. The same car in summer is £400.
The aggregators are always a good bet. I use either Holiday Autos or www.arguscarhire.com They all seem to use the same technology - Car Crawler. Another good bet is cars.easyjet.com . They use Europcar.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
| Gaza wrote: |
Simple supply and demand. Book car out of Faro airport in January and it will cost around £120 for 10 days. The same car in summer is £400.
|
I'm not comparing in and out of season. 
The list above are pretty much all airports that you would fly to for accessing nearby ski resorts. So all are in season.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.
|
£168.99 Grenoble
£168.99 Chambery railway (no cars available for those dates at airport!)
Another reason to be put off GVA.
Last edited by Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do. on Fri 30-01-15 11:51; edited 1 time in total
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll need to Register first of course.
You'll need to Register first of course.
|
I've rented from Chambery Airport before - have they stopped doing it?
EDIT: I should read more carefully - I see you said "available"... 
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
The other thing to think about is booking cars now for NEXT year. Many places (direct and agencies like auto-europe) will give free cancellation, which enables you to book at todays cheap rates on a speculative basis, and cancel nearer the time if you don't need or the price is better.
If you do this, worth booking the max possible time you might need, as generally to add a day on results in the entire deal being repriced at the spot rate.
Looking at my rentals this season,I've typically paid £150-200/week for a golf-sized car at GVA swiss side, with winter tyres etc. included. Those are all high season weeks - xmas, NY, feb half term, Easter.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Be careful with the aggregators, sometime you dont know who the car hire company is with until the book, this can be a problem if booking in Spain, and you can end up with an
unscrupulous car hire company, trying to force sell you additional insurance , full to empty fuel tank policy, etc
|
|
|
|
|
|
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
You'll get to see more forums and be part of the best ski club on the net.
|
| Quote: |
Be careful with the aggregators, sometime you dont know who the car hire company is with until the book, this can be a problem if booking in Spain, and you can end up with an
unscrupulous car hire company, trying to force sell you additional insurance , full to empty fuel tank policy, etc
New post
|
They operate in Italy as well. I got caught in Milan with this scam
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
I use a separate insurance policy for the car hire excess - I rarely hire, but it's cheaper even for a week, and the annual policies are a good buy if you hire often.
As for the "full to empty" tank that's a pain, but if there's £150 difference in the hire price, a pain I am willing to bear.
|
|
|
|
|
|
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
snowHeads are a friendly bunch.
|
£395 from the Swiss side of Geneva airport! You need to get across to one of the comparison sites.
www.travelsupermarket.com will find you a compact* from £210 or an Intermediate from £228 for the same dates.
* Why can't they all use the same names for car sizes! Looks like their 'compact' is standard Focus/Astra/Golf sized and 'intermediate' is the 'tall' version of the same (Focus CMax, etc).
|
|
|
|
|
|
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
And love to help out and answer questions and of course, read each other's snow reports.
|
|
@Mjit, +1 on car sizes.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| pam w wrote: |
I use a separate insurance policy for the car hire excess - I rarely hire, but it's cheaper even for a week, and the annual policies are a good buy if you hire often.
As for the "full to empty" tank that's a pain, but if there's £150 difference in the hire price, a pain I am willing to bear. |
+1 on both points. I've had to claim 3 times, once I got the money back from car hire so refunded the insurance. I've had more benefit than I would pay in 25 years worth of premiums!
|
|
|
|
|
|
You know it makes sense.
|
|
|
|
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:
|
| holidayloverxx wrote: |
| pam w wrote: |
I use a separate insurance policy for the car hire excess - I rarely hire, but it's cheaper even for a week, and the annual policies are a good buy if you hire often.
As for the "full to empty" tank that's a pain, but if there's £150 difference in the hire price, a pain I am willing to bear. |
+1 on both points. I've had to claim 3 times, once I got the money back from car hire so refunded the insurance. I've had more benefit than I would pay in 25 years worth of premiums! |
I hire virtually every week as I commute to Essex. I pick-up a hire car from Europcar at Stansted and their "supercover" is something like £20 per day. It is almost as much as the daily rate for the car. My annual policy with insurance4carhire recoups its cost in a week.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Poster: A snowHead
|
|
Geneva: Just a quick tip - sometimes, the native '.ch' car hire sites have cars and rates on offer that you don't see when you route through their '.com' site and say you're based in the UK. This isn't always the case, but it can be worth looking at sixt.ch etc. just to double-check. Sometimes they also have minibuses and MPVs on offer that mean youc an take a larger family/group in one vehicle rather than two.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
Obviously A snowHead isn't a real person
|
|
I've just booked Easter car rental from Munich via Autoeurope. The UK web site price was £241, I booked through the German web site for € 239, so a saving of about 30%.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?
|
| Ray Zorro wrote: |
| ...£328.56 Barcelona |
Depending on what you're including, that sounds much too expensive. I just hired a car for about £7 a day from Budget (same company as Avis) in Barcelona.
The CDW on the other hand is hugely expensive. So the devil's in the detail with these. Anyone care to recommend a decent third party insurer for Collision Damage Waivers, as the rental company charges for this appear to be a rip-off. Even with that, your cost seems about a factor of two too much.
Oh, if you're hiring in Vancouver at least, then there's a surcharge for doing that from the airport, so cheapskates like me may want to look at other ways to hire there.
|
|
|
|
|
|
You need to Login to know who's really who.
You need to Login to know who's really who.
|
The latest trick on many comparison sites seems to be cars from Budget provided at an extremely low rate, but with no CDW. e.g. next Xmas, I've been quoted £169 for 15 days rental of an economy car (Polo) with Budget at GVA, including winterisation, but with no CDW. This lets them show a very low headline rate, but requires separate insurance.
I get CDW with my credit card but when I looked for standalone it was a bit of a struggle to distinguish it from the many CDW excess insurance policies.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
FAQ
