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Post by johnc on Apr 12, 2022 11:05:29 GMT
We have to fly from Edinburgh unfortunately - Virgin offered us free parking (having moved the flight from Glasgow) but the car park is about 10/15 minutes walk with no shuttle bus. Imagine if it was pouring! I have just bitten the bullet and booked the multi storey attached to the airport for just under £90 for 18 days.
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Post by Martin on Apr 12, 2022 11:51:07 GMT
We have to fly from Edinburgh unfortunately - Virgin offered us free parking (having moved the flight from Glasgow) but the car park is about 10/15 minutes walk with no shuttle bus. Imagine if it was pouring! I have just bitten the bullet and booked the multi storey attached to the airport for just under £90 for 18 days. That's excellent value compared to Heathrow, £274 for 15 and a bit days in the short stay! Luton is better, we're paying £60 for 7 nights at the end of May. |
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Post by johnc on Apr 12, 2022 15:00:11 GMT
It's so good to be talking about going on holiday and actually looking as though it will happen too!
Glasgow is more expensive to park than Edinburgh - about £120 for the same period but still half the price of Heathrow. Maybe it's also cheaper to park planes which might be why Virgin moved.
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Post by LandieMark on Apr 12, 2022 16:13:04 GMT
It was just under £200 for meet and greet at Manchester in June, but that included fast track and lounge passes - I think the parking was about £120.
I just hope they have their act together by the end of June. I would have gone from Newcastle and got a taxi instead, but I hate being ripped off and wasn't going to pay double for flights.
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Post by ChrisM on Apr 12, 2022 19:10:05 GMT
..... booked the multi storey attached to the airport for just under £90 for 18 days. That sounds an absolute bargain for airport parking, cheaper than the daily rate in most town centre car parks too |
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 12, 2022 23:43:22 GMT
I've been looking at car hire in Italy for Easter...can't find it anywhere for under £50/day for the smallest class of car.
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Post by LandieMark on Apr 13, 2022 5:39:50 GMT
I'm paying £40 per day for a Fiat Panda in Corfu with full insurance. I was expecting half that.
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Post by bryan on Apr 13, 2022 6:07:21 GMT
I've been looking at car hire in Italy for Easter...can't find it anywhere for under £50/day for the smallest class of car. At that price would it pay you to buy a Panda to keep at your house over there? |
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 13, 2022 11:24:37 GMT
You've not seen the prices of second-hand cars in Italy...
For example our 63-plate 500 Twinair Lounge, which has 21k miles on the clock, is worth about £4.5k. That's about EUR5.5k. To buy an equivalent would probably cost EUR10k in Italy.
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Post by Martin on Apr 13, 2022 11:36:15 GMT
I've been looking at car hire in Italy for Easter...can't find it anywhere for under £50/day for the smallest class of car. Assuming you mean Easter 2022, then it’s not a huge surprise it is more costly at short notice. I think we’re paying about £65/day for May, but if I booked it now it would be over £100/day and that’s still 5 weeks away. |
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Post by Alex on Apr 13, 2022 12:27:35 GMT
Just booked a hire car in Dublin for two days next month - €260! I'm sure it's never been that expensive before.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 13, 2022 13:04:12 GMT
I've been looking at car hire in Italy for Easter...can't find it anywhere for under £50/day for the smallest class of car. Assuming you mean Easter 2022, then it’s not a huge surprise it is more costly at short notice. I think we’re paying about £65/day for May, but if I booked it now it would be over £100/day and that’s still 5 weeks away. I've been looking for months - it's never been less than £50/day. We can probably cope without - our flat is in the heart of town and a short walk to everything, including the sea - and just borrow my mother-in-law's "Ferrari" if we need to go anywhere and she isn't using it. It's actually a 2019 Citroen C1 - it gets the nickname by virtue of being bright red. |
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Post by Roadrunner on Apr 13, 2022 20:56:53 GMT
Sixt has provided the use of an A3 in Italy for a week for around £500, with a decent level of insurance. That was booked back in December.
Actually... it was booked as a BMW 1-Series manual or similar, but was upgraded for free to the A3 auto when we arrived.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 13, 2022 23:38:42 GMT
£500 for a week is eye-watering. Pre-COVID, I rarely spent more than €20/day on car hire, and often not much more than €10/day. A particularly good deal was a Mini Cooper that cost me €190 for 17 days from Avis in August about four years ago.
And I never take out extra insurance - just have one of those annual policies that costs about £50-60 per year.
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Post by Big Blue on Apr 13, 2022 23:52:16 GMT
And I never take out extra insurance - just have one of those annual policies that costs about £50-60 per year. You can’t do that with Sixt. Their basic sale is no insurance outside 3rd party cover which is the legal minimum. So the excess cover insurance policy (I have one too) doesn’t cover a basic Sixt hire as there is no excess. Sixt have nice cars but I avoid them like the plague because of their insurances. |
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Post by Martin on Apr 14, 2022 6:28:36 GMT
And I never take out extra insurance - just have one of those annual policies that costs about £50-60 per year. You can’t do that with Sixt. Their basic sale is no insurance outside 3rd party cover which is the legal minimum. So the excess cover insurance policy (I have one too) doesn’t cover a basic Sixt hire as there is no excess. Sixt have nice cars but I avoid them like the plague because of their insurances. I’m with Sixt in May and just had a look at the documentation, it says “damage and theft excess - €2,000” edit: had a look at a new booking and the €2,000 excess is in the price they quote but you can downgrade to 3rd party (or pay more to reduce the excess to €1,200 or €0). I was sure when I was comparing prices it was with an excess (whatever was the highest), Sixt were a little bit more expensive but as you say, they do have nicer (better equipped) cars. My worldwide annual insurance excess policy covers £6,500, so all good. |
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Post by Big Blue on Apr 14, 2022 8:12:29 GMT
Yes perhaps I should’ve been more diligent with my wording: you need to be careful with Sixt because the default position may be no excess cover insurance, as it is in Nice I seem to recall.
My issue is that I’m VIP Exclusive with Europcar so I rarely look elsewhere. I once booked a car with a flight and forgot I had a car booked so automatically booked with Europcar - the other car was with Avis! Idiot doesn’t begin to describe it.
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 14, 2022 8:38:20 GMT
I almost never use Sixt. They’ve never been competitive in Italy which is where 90% of my rentals have been.
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Post by Martin on Apr 14, 2022 9:25:18 GMT
I’ve used Sixt in Spain, Croatia, Ireland and now Italy. Not the cheapest, but not horrendous for what you get. I use Alamo mainly in the US (never had a good experience with Hertz) and have tried Europcar a fair bit (mainly in the Far East and Dubai, I had a terrible experience in Holland) and Avis in France a couple of times.
The last couple of cars from Sixt were really nicely specced for a hire car, an X3 with leather, surround cameras, HUD, HK etc and a 3 series with adaptive suspension, HK, keyless and a couple of other things. I know I’m in the minority, but I usually rent a car wherever I go and it’s part of the holiday, not just a cheap way of getting from A to B.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 14, 2022 10:30:59 GMT
How long do hire outfits keep their motors? I heard it was six months to a year to avoid mileage penalties a while ago but no idea if that has changed.
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Post by Big Blue on Apr 14, 2022 10:52:40 GMT
They don’t get penalised for mileage, it’s more about the viability of their fleet as a used sale. Some cars in some markets may stay longer than others and I reckon in some cases the Avis, Hertz, Europcar cars go to the next chain of hire companies in the hierarchy, so you get an 18month old car with 20k kms on it for 2/3 the price of a tier one hire company.
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Post by bryan on Apr 14, 2022 11:53:05 GMT
When I worked at Enterprise we used to make more money selling the cars at a few months old back to the manufacturer/supermarkets than we did renting them!
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Post by PetrolEd on Apr 14, 2022 12:09:54 GMT
When I worked at Enterprise we used to make more money selling the cars at a few months old back to the manufacturer/supermarkets than we did renting them! Due to Volume you were probably getting at least 25% discount. I know a lot of rentals in the UK still have the sticker on the speedo "this vehicle must not exceed 10,000 miles " . Given the difficulty in suppling new cars in general, I can't imagine the cars are replaced every 6 months now and the rental company enjoying such large discounts. If the rental companies aren't getting the income at the back end then no great suprise the rental costs are going up. |
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Post by bryan on Apr 14, 2022 13:42:34 GMT
I think we could buy new Corsas for about £4.5k and then flog them for £5.5k 6months old to the supermarket to appear on the forecourt at £6.5k against a list of £9k...give or take it was 25yrs ago!
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Post by Bob Sacamano v2.0 on Apr 14, 2022 14:37:22 GMT
When I worked at Enterprise we used to make more money selling the cars at a few months old back to the manufacturer/supermarkets than we did renting them! Due to Volume you were probably getting at least 25% discount. I know a lot of rentals in the UK still have the sticker on the speedo "this vehicle must not exceed 10,000 miles " . Given the difficulty in suppling new cars in general, I can't imagine the cars are replaced every 6 months now and the rental company enjoying such large discounts. If the rental companies aren't getting the income at the back end then no great suprise the rental costs are going up. When I was getting 3-4 month rentals on BMW 1 and 3 Series they had the sticker on the dashboard about not exceeding 10k miles. The delivery drivers said that the company (which I think was BMW owned) got a 23% discount on the new cost and then the cars went into the dealer network. They were all Y plates as they came in through Immingham I think. |
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Post by racingteatray on Apr 14, 2022 16:06:57 GMT
I’ve used Sixt in Spain, Croatia, Ireland and now Italy. Not the cheapest, but not horrendous for what you get. I use Alamo mainly in the US (never had a good experience with Hertz) and have tried Europcar a fair bit (mainly in the Far East and Dubai, I had a terrible experience in Holland) and Avis in France a couple of times. The last couple of cars from Sixt were really nicely specced for a hire car, an X3 with leather, surround cameras, HUD, HK etc and a 3 series with adaptive suspension, HK, keyless and a couple of other things. I know I’m in the minority, but I usually rent a car wherever I go and it’s part of the holiday, not just a cheap way of getting from A to B. I usually use Avis or Hertz, or sometimes I've used Sicily by Car, or Dollar/Thrifty and never book anything above a "Clio or similar", unless prices are particularly keen in which I might treat myself, or it's actually a driving holiday. But usually whatever it is is desperately pedestrian under the bonnet, no matter what FG it has been garlanded with. |
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Post by Martin on Apr 14, 2022 16:24:55 GMT
Getting something with an interesting engine in Europe is pretty expensive and difficult to justify for a full holiday. Much easier in the US. I’ve had several V8s over the years, a couple of 6 cylinders and one 5 cylinder. Nothing smaller.
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Post by Alex on Apr 14, 2022 17:53:46 GMT
How long do hire outfits keep their motors? I heard it was six months to a year to avoid mileage penalties a while ago but no idea if that has changed. The lack of supply of new cars has put paid to rental firms being able to replace cars at 6m old. Even if they move to get shot of their fleet at 12m old right now they'd quickly have very little to be able to rent out. It's another reason second hand car prices are going through the roof. |
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Post by Roadrunner on Apr 14, 2022 18:06:01 GMT
I’ve used Sixt in Spain, Croatia, Ireland and now Italy. Not the cheapest, but not horrendous for what you get. I use Alamo mainly in the US (never had a good experience with Hertz) and have tried Europcar a fair bit (mainly in the Far East and Dubai, I had a terrible experience in Holland) and Avis in France a couple of times. The last couple of cars from Sixt were really nicely specced for a hire car, an X3 with leather, surround cameras, HUD, HK etc and a 3 series with adaptive suspension, HK, keyless and a couple of other things. I know I’m in the minority, but I usually rent a car wherever I go and it’s part of the holiday, not just a cheap way of getting from A to B. I agree. I wanted a decent car and absolutely zero embuggeration in terms of arguing over whether that stone chip was on the car when I picked it up, so the package I booked provided just that. The fact that they gave me a free upgrade was icing on the cake. Edit to add that I have kerbed a wheel, so a no-haggle insurance was the right choice. |
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Post by Roadrunner on Apr 19, 2022 15:32:42 GMT
Just as a postscript, the whole Sixt experience was exactly as it always is; efficient, quick, and completely trouble-free. For me, it is well worth parting with a few extra Euros to ensure that the car hire experience adds to the holiday rather than detracting from it.
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