Car Rentals: LHR
 

Hey guys,

I have a funeral in my immediate family to attend at the end of May. Managed to get a good round trip deal on flights, direct with luggage included for 600 to LHR. I'm looking to rent a car for as cheap as possible. When I run car rentals through Skyscanner.com, it comes back with deals from LHR from places such as Europcar, through a site called gotrentalcars for $86 for just over a week. Am I right to be skeptical about this kind of deal? It states unlimited mileage, insurance included, etc...? Where have you guys booked for LHR car rentals before? And how much?

Thanks in advance

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

Looking for the cheapest deal may end up costing more. For my car rental at Birmingham airport last year, looking for recommendations I read through a frequent flyer forum. I read numerous complaints about various companies making false claims for damage repair. Typically the renter would receive a letter weeks or even months after the car hire date, claiming several hundreds of pounds/dollars for repair to dents or scratches, and taking the amount off the renter's credit card. This seems to be a common scam for some rental companies, especially franchise operators. The advice given is to take photographs of the car before getting in and driving, and later after dropping the car off. This is especially important if there is no-one present to check the car in when returning. When presented with photographic evidence, the company usually went silent on the claim.

At BHX I used Sixt. I have used Sixt before and found them to be good. I paid with Amex credit card, using Amex Premium insurance coverage (about $25 per trip), and declined the rental company insurance. Sixt are currently listing LHR base rate for a week around $90.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

From looking at some of the cheaper sites - I noticed things like the deposit was a lot bigger, you were responsible to more amounts etc and these didn't show up until went to actually book and I clicked on the t&c stuff to check. It didn't leave me feeling very comfortable and went with enterprise.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

At LHR rent from one of the on-site firms, like Avis/Enterprise/Hertz and you cannot go wrong (I have used them all, most recently Avis for Spring Break)
Booking via Expedia or other sites instead of direct can be worthwhile depending on the deals offered.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

My last trip I used Sixt, very happy with them, got a very nice Bimmer, yes you pay a little more, but in my opinion they won't try and Nickel and Dime you, the car return was a cursory glance, and all good, going cheap may start cheap, but who knows what they will try and fleece you with!!

You get what you pay for rings true for me!!

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

+1 to comments suggesting the budget options aren't always budget-friendly. I've usually ended up booking through Avis, as I was a member of some sort of premium thingy through a previous employer and have seen no reason to change preferred rental company. I spent a while flying into T5 on a semi-regular basis, where Avis' pre-booked cars were brought into the short-term parking garage rather than needing a shuttle to the rental lot on the northern perimeter road. That alone was worth a few extra quid in my book. Avis also has a fast-track pick up service at T2 for their "preferred customer" program which, again, is IMO worth joining just for the extra convenience of not having to haul luggage to and from the rental lot on the shuttle bus.

I'm pretty sure some other suppliers have similar agreements (Sixt definitely has a reserved section of the T5 garage, so may have similar arrangements at T2).

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

I've only ever used Enterprise at LHR. Little tip if using Enterprise, search for cars at their Hounslow location, rather than the Enterprise within the Airport. It's an very short taxi ride away along the Bath Road but the savings are pretty significant from what I have found. Always worth checking. Got a really nice Mercedes C Class from there last Christmas and it was a lot cheaper.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

i second that!!

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

long standing scam - occurred to me 20 years ago ... for a windscreen. Basic fraud. Fortunately we had a solicitor in the family who put a courtesy stop to it.
Photos at check out and upon return, and written acceptance of condition upon ticket close out can help, too.

If using hotwire, expedias of the world; I've found that clearing your computer's cache often will regenerate special pricing as the sites will monitor your browsing habits etc and not always show the best deal. There used to be price differences between if you used a Mac vs Windows!! (Expedia got caught for that one years ago! lol)

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

I have used rentalcars.com and been very satisfied. This includes one occasion when, as a special deal, full insurance cover was included. The car was side swiped while parked and the full £3,800 was covered and handled by them.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

I used Hertz the last time I was at LHR, I don't recall which travel site I booked through, but I know it wasn't a whole lot more than the lower price companies, and super-easy pick up and drop off.

If you're in the UK for more than a few days try pricing a car rented in the city you're going to and taking the train or bus then picking up the car locally - airport rentals are significantly more expensive than renting locally.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

Europcar are pretty big, it's not like they are some backstreet team - is the question more about using the re-seller sites? The price sounds pretty good, but it's not utterly crazy and if you buy via a UK website you would probably have insurance included as that is the standard.

Enterprise tried to diddle me over here - my insurance company was even prepared to pay out - I stopped them. You can't get Hail damage if it doesn't Hail where you are - they had assumed my location as I picked-up from one place and dropped at another.

Re: Car Rentals: LHR
 

We always use Hertz. They have a very frequent shuttle bus and processing is fairly swift.