Car Hire Costs

[Swervin_Mervin]

Jaysus. I mean I know prices have gone up across the board even so this still came as a shock. Generally it's hard to tell for us regarding the costs of going away as our last foreign holiday was summer 2019 when the boy wasn't in school proper, so we could choose to go outside main school holidays.

But bloody hell the car hire costs in particular are out there on there own in terms of the increase. We typically book direct with one of main companies, such as Hertz, Europcar etc. I appreciate that's not necessarily the cheapest way to do it, but it's what I prefer. We checked last night and, for a Compact class car (Golf, Leon or even a Q2 one year) prices seem to have doubled for the absolute cheapest direct deal compared to what we paid between 2017-2019. Not only that, but prices were always fairly close between all the big companies, but this time some of those are 3x what we've previously paid.

[dinny_g]

I've always found Sixt to be cheapest when booking from the Airport in France, Germany and Austria.

Particularly if, like me you add stuff on like Excess Reduction etc.

[Simon]

Jaysus. I mean I know prices have gone up across the board even so this still came as a shock. Generally it's hard to tell for us regarding the costs of going away as our last foreign holiday was summer 2019 when the boy wasn't in school proper, so we could choose to go outside main school holidays.

But bloody hell the car hire costs in particular are out there on there own in terms of the increase. We typically book direct with one of main companies, such as Hertz, Europcar etc. I appreciate that's not necessarily the cheapest way to do it, but it's what I prefer. We checked last night and, for a Compact class car (Golf, Leon or even a Q2 one year) prices seem to have doubled for the absolute cheapest direct deal compared to what we paid between 2017-2019. Not only that, but prices were always fairly close between all the big companies, but this time some of those are 3x what we've previously paid.

Where are you going? We always try and use a local car hire company whenever we go abroad as they're usually cheaper, don't have silly mileage caps and aren't crazy with the insurance extras either.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Nowhere fancy - just Spain. This is across the board as well - a colleague was looking in Italy and fell off their chair at the car hire costs.

As for insurance excess - I always get cover elsewhere for that as it works out much, much cheaper than via the hirer themselves.

I did read something the other day about hire companies having sold off lots of their fleet, or handed them back, during the pandemic in a bid to cut costs and stay afloat, with the issue now being that demand is outstripping supply. With the chip shortage they've been struggling to get fleets back up quick enough.

I'm sure there's a healthy amount of profiteering going on as well though.

[Gwaredd]

We found the same when looking at America. A Tahoe had gone up from circa £600 for a fortnight to over 2 grand! I've heard it's slowly coming back down, but still crazy prices. Villas have shot up too. It's almost like the old days when trips overseas were for the elite only.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Yep. Flights were the first shock. Then we looked at training it to somewhere in Europe and that was fairly bad, so we went back to stomaching the flight costs instead.

[V8Granite]

Jump in car, roof box and drive.

I’ve hired so many over the years the thought of dealing with them for a family holiday gives me the shivers.

False claims
False damage
Places being shut
False speeding fines
Sat nav being added on
Fuel added to a full tank

London to Barcelona is 2 days drive for example, buy the wife a floppy hat, crack a window and have Matt Monro on a loop.

Dave!

[Jimexpl]

Jump in car, roof box and drive.

I’ve hired so many over the years the thought of dealing with them for a family holiday gives me the shivers.

False claims
False damage
Places being shut
False speeding fines
Sat nav being added on
Fuel added to a full tank

London to Barcelona is 2 days drive for example, buy the wife a floppy hat, crack a window and have Matt Monro on a loop.

Dave!

Dave’s right - if you’re going to mainland Europe just drive (assuming you live within about 3 hours the euro tunnel/ferry.

Two days in the car at each end of the holiday is far more pleasant than dealing with holiday air travel, particularly with kids and all the crap that they come with.

Of course if you’re talking Tenerife then it’s not that simple!

[dinny_g]

Two days in the car at each end of the holiday is far more pleasant than dealing with holiday air travel, particularly with kids and all the crap that they come with.

yeah, 4 days, driving for 10 or 12 hours per day with kids in the car sounds like heaven...

I think I'd sooner deal with the Airports to be honest...

[nuttinnew]

(assuming you live within about 3 hours the euro tunnel/ferry.

Atm that's about the entrance to the terminal



Gavster's thread has me wondering if there's an equivalent Turo/Karshare over there you could try.

[Swervin_Mervin]

Two days in the car at each end of the holiday is far more pleasant than dealing with holiday air travel, particularly with kids and all the crap that they come with.

yeah, 4 days, driving for 10 or 12 hours per day with kids in the car sounds like heaven...

I think I'd sooner deal with the Airports to be honest...

Exactly. And from up here to almost the furthest point in Spain would be nearer 3 days each end. 1 week of driving for 1 week of holiday

[V8Granite]

You guys need to stop driving at 30mph everywhere.

Dave!

[DeskJockey]

Not cost related, but we get hire cars through work when needing to redeem on business. Used to be that cars could be booked on a day-to-day basis. That's now gone up to five days notice which is just impossible when dealing with customers.

[Jimexpl]

Two days in the car at each end of the holiday is far more pleasant than dealing with holiday air travel, particularly with kids and all the crap that they come with.

yeah, 4 days, driving for 10 or 12 hours per day with kids in the car sounds like heaven...

I think I'd sooner deal with the Airports to be honest...

Exactly. And from up here to almost the furthest point in Spain would be nearer 3 days each end. 1 week of driving for 1 week of holiday

Send the family on the plane then and you can do a solo drive down with the luggage!

[McSwede]

yeah, 4 days, driving for 10 or 12 hours per day with kids in the car sounds like heaven...

I think I'd sooner deal with the Airports to be honest...

Exactly. And from up here to almost the furthest point in Spain would be nearer 3 days each end. 1 week of driving for 1 week of holiday

Send the family on the plane then and you can do a solo drive down with the luggage!

Exactly right. That's what I like to do when we go to France. Extra few days of quiet holibob for McSwede

[V8Granite]

Kids have a late night, sing songs down to the euro tunnel, then by the time you’ve done 20km in France at 22:30 at night the kids are asleep, trashy mags for the wife, she is gone by 23:00, you raise the speed up to 90 and enjoy a few good R4 style quiz shows or podcasts.

Kids stir at sunrise and you have a lovely breakfast somewhere, you have a baguette and an onion, then after some restorative lunchtime nap on a riverside, grab some snacks and barrel on down to your final destination.

First day in Spain you get a well earnt few glasses of wine and some midday naps and revel in all the extra kit you have been able to bring and saved money on hiring a car

A well done reach around from the wife and a few hours of high speed driving to boot, huzzah!!

Dave!

[Swervin_Mervin]

Righto.

[Mito Man]

Le rêve


La réalité

[McSwede]

Le rêve


La réalité

That's why they fly!!

[nuttinnew]

Ferry to Santander ftw