Christmas Car Hire

[jennaxoxo]

Hello,

Does anyone know of any cheap local car hire companies so I can hire a car for a week over christmas?

Many Thanks

[DIX]

JENN - In my experience that isn't quite the way it works. First, although of course car-hire charges vary, they don't vary much between different firms, so much as between the different tariffs they operate. Second, hire firms vary their rates according to the time of year, so that when there are more renters than cars it's very expensive; and when there are more cars than renters it's cheaper - oops, I mean less expensive. In fact not less expensive so much as more 'discounts'. Third, the further ahead you book the less it is likely to cost. Like now (or much earlier!).

To cut a long story short, the best deal you will get for Christmas is by booking up a long way ahead. You can waste literally hours and hours of your life booking-up on internet car-hire sites, and dwelling over the different 'variables' they offer - then when you finally contact them you get put through to someone in somewhere like Thailand who seems to be able to offer you any package from any hire firm, when you thought they were all separate companies, and are now wondering what was the point of carefully weighing up a particular deal in the first place.

My suggestion is to go round in person to somewhere you have seen that has reliable looking signs up saying Car Hire, and talk to them directly. And keep asking them if they can do it cheaper again than the 'budget' deal they have just offered you. There's a place that looks like a petrol station close to the Oval Tube (just a few yards south from the station, on Clapham Road), where they hire cars under half-a-dozen or so of the main brand names, for example - I've used them several times.

If you remain unfazed by the apparent rudeness that is usually part and parcel of dealing with car-hire, and stick it out, you should come-off better. And face-to-face gives you more reason for trust than phone-calls can.

That said, I decided last January that hiring vehicles at preposterous British Christmas rates was so uneconomical (not to mention, so enraging) that I would buy a cheap car instead - really just to see how the economics panned-out. Nine months on - fuel excepted (as it is in the hire charges too), I've just about spent the amount hiring a car for a fortnight last December cost me. And that includes the purchase price. All the more reason to wonder what they base their charges on - Good luck, DIX

[oneearth121]

DX i am glad JENN only asked about hire of car and not what they should do for xmas.

[mr blue sky]

lol

[christinaH]

Hi Jenna,

Are yo ua member of Zipcar? I would check it out, you can book in advance and I recently had to hire a car for the whole weekend and found them to be really reasonable. I had to call up for a better rate but i think it was ?60 for the weekend. They usually charge by the half hour. If you havent heard of them they are great to be a member of. Cars are parked all over the city. They send you a card, you then book online and can see all the cars in your vicinity and then use the card to access them. Good luck :-)

[peleparso]

Would echo sentiments around Zipcar which I find excellent, although really only good for short trips rather than longer hire. Xmas is v expensive in terms of Hertz, etc so you'll be lucky to get a car for under ?200 for a week. I wouldn't go near any of the more "local" car hire places, too many horror stories re over-charging.

[Jules-and-Boo]

lol - or you could just buy one! ( I love that from Dix!) :-)

[rani]

zIP car the best

[Blah Blah]

Zipcar thirded and also icanhire.com (similar scheme but a bit cheaper on some vehicles).