Car Hire - How much!!

[Jader1973]

Just looking at car hire, 20 days over Christmas / NY - Glasgow Airport.

Europcar Octavia Auto:
Australian site: pay now = $8,120 = about 4k GBP
UK Site: pay now = 1,948 GBP

fking hell.

Edited by Jader1973 on Saturday 2nd April 05:46

[mitchell6]

Try the rental cars.com app or website. Can sometimes work out cheaper. Assume they are expecting to be busy over that period and have jacked the rates to ensure they have cars.

[Jader1973]

Yeah, definitely a Christmas premium.

Options could be parents collect from Airport (not sure if my already frazzled nerves could cope with that though) and hire from someplace nearer them, or anyone used Arnold Clark for car hire?

[Phunk]

Jader1973 said:

Yeah, definitely a Christmas premium.

Options could be parents collect from Airport (not sure if my already frazzled nerves could cope with that though) and hire from someplace nearer them, or anyone used Arnold Clark for car hire?

Arnold Clark car hire are fine, no issues.

[Poisson96]

Rhino are a good comparison site.

[captain_cynic]

Jader1973 said:

Just looking at car hire, 20 days over Christmas / NY - Glasgow Airport.

Europcar Octavia Auto:
Australian site: pay now = $8,120 = about 4k GBP
UK Site: pay now = 1,948 GBP

fking hell.

Edited by Jader1973 on Saturday 2nd April 05:46

Surely you'd be familiar with the Australasian price dilation field. That magic barrier that surrounds Oz and makes everything cost at least twice as much. Buy from the UK site if your bank isn't going to rape you with fees (IIRC, the Latitude/28 Degrees and Bankwest Zero credit cards have no international transaction or currency conversion fees, as do the Citibank, ING and Macquarie debit offerings)

The Christmas markup is huge, add some more markup if you're using Glasgow airport. As others have mentioned, look at using the price aggregators, especially if you're not concerned about exactly which model you're getting.

Does it need to be an Octavia Auto? You can get a manual econobox for half that, a manual estate/SUV is cheaper as will be an auto saloon. Auto cars sell for a premium because a lot of foreigners (erm... Americans) can't drive a manual.

[captain.scarlet]

Not checked for the UK, but apparently Amazon is now doing car hire.

If there are any local car rental companies then consider those as they can often be more competitive.

Car hire charges are astronomical these days, let alone the constant worry of the hire car getting damaged in any way. I'm currently working abroad but left my old car behind at home. The cost of tax, MOT, insurance etc for a year is about £500 and cheaper than hiring a Fiat 500 for a fortnight from Europcar.