Car Hire costs in Summer

Hi all

The cost of car hire in the summer is very high. It is enough to put people off coming to Spain.

I hire a car last week 4 days =£75

Summer hire 12 days = £410

All for a small basic car. It will soon be cheaper to buy and leave a car out in Spain.

I read somewhere on this site about a group of people buying a car between them. If that is successful I wouyld be happy to hear of their experience and look to taking it forward myself with like minded peole.

dd

I wouldn't fancy getting in to that, due to the likely problems with running costs, and the likelihood that everyone wants it at the same time, etc. The most practical solution is to watch the prices and book early. I have 15 days starting in early September, and it cost me around £240. Not dirt cheap, but acceptable. That is for an economy car, not compact. I booked this in early January through Easyjet, which was surprisingly the cheapest. May still be worth checking with them. They use Europcar, which I have never used before. Anybody have any experience with them?

Dave

This is where you have toweigh up the costs of flying and then hiring a car or driving over, with the cost of the ferry to Spain, and petrol, I bet now the costsare narrowing, because the ferry to Spain is still quite expensive.

Thanks Dave.

The trouble is you have got to be careful because some firms use differant currency rates to compare costs.

EG

I booked car with Carjet cost 451euros approx £410 their figures

DoYouspaion cost 470 euros approx approx £361

It is only when you look closely at the figures you find one is using a rate of 1.3 and the other a rate of 1.1 so the figures they give you do not match up.

I always check cost in euros because iot is so easy for them to lead you up the garden path when they quopte in Sterling.

dd

I agree. I always book the car in Euros when booking independently. I have a Citibank Euro account that I normally pay with. This particular Easyjet booking was in sterling, so they have to worry about the currency rates. On the down side I did have to pay everything up front, so I guess they will just hedge their Euro position.

 if you can handle the drive without doubt its now more cost effective if you use the Dover/France ferry and are going for a min of say 3/4 weeks in the summer using budget hotels which can cost around 30 euros.Car hire in the summer is getting prohibitive due to the high cost.

 If driving a car out to Spain is a problem, I do know someone who offers a very reliable service at a reasonable cost. Please let me know if anyone is interested and I will pass on their details.

Hi,

I have noticed car hire costs rocketing over the years. I regularly used Autoamigos. Last summer it cost me approx £600 for 4 weeks peak time, for a polo-type car, which wasn't too bad. They use Goldcar at the airport and speak english. Haven't  tried them this year yet, but often found them the cheapest, esp if booked on-line, and the price is fixed then.

Hope this helps.

This blog post may be of use to people.  It has details of some comparison sites that you can use to hopefully reduce your car hire costs.

Fultond, we have used Europcar many times through holdiday autos, they are fine. This year we plan to go for 5 weeks July/August so are considering driving our car over. We took our daughters car over last year but she is now back from working overseas and wants her car back!