petitefrancaise

looks like the on-airport petrol station has gone.
Just be prepared.... I haven't ever flown out of Manchester before, I will probably use it again just because of that lovely Singapore Airlines flight from there to Houston. (direct and very cheap). I was just caught off guard with the petrol stations - I drove through very lovely cheshire countryside onto the M56 and only really started looking for a station near the M56 and didn't pass one.

chawkins99

The conspiracy theorist in me says the rental companies banded together to shut it down.

lizzyq

Yes, the one I was thinking of has indeed closed down

petitefrancaise

Well I thought that as well!!

michaelr711

Seriously, check Thrifty at Picadilly. Ours was 256 gbp from December 22-Jan 7.

MtbbikeVanlife

Thanks Michael, but it seems that location will be closed on the 26th, and the Airport location Thrifty start at over GBP500 for my required dates !

cluedweasel

We used Advantage out of Heathrow on our recent trip. They're actually Europcar. Advantage seems to be their US moniker. No real issues other than the usual upsells. They did claim they didn't have the car we booked (despite the lot being full of them) and tried to get us to pay more for a higher category. We stuck to our guns and ended up with a nicer car for the same price.

RICH

can't find the info, but from memory I used advantage out of Manchester no problem. It was the day of the concert bomb.

Jerseygirl

It’s not going reopen...hotels are to be built on the site and surrounding area.

Steerpike

I was there in October, and the place was a huge mess. The new 'drop-off charge' system is ridiculous, and everyone is trying to avoid that and clogging the place up by using parking garage lanes, etc. Also, there were heavy roadworks within the airport, and the route my google maps tried to take me on was closed. There were nice yellow 'detour' signs, at every roundabout and turn, except ... when you needed it! I found myself at some roundabout with no (obvious to me) signs, and just had to wing it. Luckily I had many hours to kill, so just kept driving round until I found it.

As an aside - I have found google navigation on my phone to be 99.99% accurate here in the US, but in UK, it was quite often out of date, and ... most annoyingly - would hardly ever get me to the final destination! I plugged in my hotel address (NOT just post code, as I've been bitten by that before) and google maps would stop directing me (you have arrived ) on some roundabout, not bothering to direct me through the maze of local streets to get to the actual hotel. Luckily, after driving in circles for a while, I saw the hotel behind a pub and got myself there. This is unheard of in the US (at least, west coast). This was not an isolated experience. Is there some better app to use on the phone? In the UK I use an iPhone so would Apple Maps do better? Below is my scrawny attempt to show what happened - I came from the M1, trying to get to the hotel which was at the first roundabout (but not readily visible from the road).

My brother advised me, and I guess I'll do this from now on, to do a 'street view' ahead of time so you know what it looks like at the destination.

Steerpike

I used Europcar in Oct, and it seemed very cheap - 2+ weeks of an Automatic, Vauxhall Astra, no extra coverages, 350 GBP. They did try to palm me off with a manual, I had to really argue to get the automatic I'd reserved. I had to wait till one came in and got washed . I also took the pre-paid gas option so I didn't have to faff with getting petrol (not included in the price I mentioned).

I'm back in Jan for 2 weeks - 14 to 28. This time, I used Auto Europe website - they compare all companies, and Europcar was again the cheapest for my size and automatic. I compared to the europcar website, same price BUT - different car designations and vehicles on offer. EG - the Europcar site suggested Vauxhall Astra as the auto car in my category; the Auto Europe website suggested Volvo V40 as the only automatic in the category. Anyway, this time I used the Auto Europe site to book the Europcar vehicle ... we'll see how it goes! This time, the quote is in USD - $439 for the two weeks.

I'm a huge fan of Costco Travel here in the US, and they've always beaten any other price for car rentals. But - last time I tried it for Manchester (which they do cover), I could not find any 'filter' or means to select automatic so had to give up. (www.costcotravel.com). They seem to only work with Alamo and Enterprise.