Car rental at Heathrow
 

I'm okay finding cheap prices but could do with some advice re: service, cars in stock and getting to the place. I hear that the car hire strip is some distance from the terminals themselves and there's a shuttlebus involved.

Any and all advice/pointers would be appreciated as neither of us have done this before :) As it'll be about 7am after an 8 hour flight we'd like the process to be as smooth as possible. I'll be coming in to T5, the mrs at T3 I believe, if it makes any difference....

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

When you come out of arrivals (at Term 3 anyway), there are signs to the car rental desks - all the main companies sit in a little row all together. Their person on the desk will just either direct you to the correct bus stop outside (if you have already booked) or take a booking for you there and then. It's dead easy. The buses seem to come and go in a big loop all day long so we never had to wait more than 5-8 mins. We used Enterprise one time, and Avis the next - all are situated near each other on the ring road. It's dead easy really. And it's barely a 5-10 minute drive from the terminal.

Drop off is much the same - allow time for their guy to look the car over - and then use their mini-bus - those poor drivers must just put the vehicle onto autodrive ;) So allow about 30 mins in total before you want to arrive at the departures desk.

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

The shuttle bus is dead easy to use. On the last trip back we pre booked our rental as it's usually cheaper that way.. They then wanted to add some insurance thing that we hadn't paid for online and it made it really expensive - almost double the initial cost so we were about to go and find a different deal when the chappie had a look online for us and gave us a different offer which worked out cheaper, so it may be worth seeing what deals they have when you get to the counter.

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

Cool. My mind's at rest. Thanks guys.

Just need to see if I can convince the wife to let us go for a Golf or a Clio or something instead of a little 107.

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

In our experience you never get what you initially ask for - it's always an equivelent or upgrade. last time we booked for a Fiesta and got a Focus. The time before we booked a Focus or something like that and got a Renault Scenic piece of poo. If we are ever offered one of those again we will refuse it even if it's the last car on the lot. Really expensive to run and uncomfortabel and I was car sick for the 1st time since I was about 5 and was trying to read in the car:eek:

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

Holiday Autos have a 50% off sale for all bookings made for a UK rental if you reserve on the 15th Jan.

Its when Im making my booking.

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

and try looking on travelsupermarket.com . . .

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

I always use 1car1 (www.1car1.com) who have proved to be cheapest. Their rates INCLUDE Loss and Damage Waiver (albeit with a 500GBP deductable) so work out cheaper than Hertz et al. They are near Term #4 but run a shuttle bus from all terminals. You have to call when you land but I've found the bus service to be better than the other hire car places.

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

I looked at them actually, they did look good but I'm not yet 25 so they won't let me drive one of their cars, ageist gits.

Thanks Joneh and Bells, I'll check both and see if we can't save a few more bucks to spend in the pub.

Re: Car rental at Heathrow
 

Ah. That would be a problem. Useful for when you grow up though.;)