Owen778

I know there are a few frequent travellers here, do any of you have useful advice for UK car rental? I know most of the useful tips for renting in the US, but I'm finding it harder to get decent rates for the UK.

I've mentioned elsewhere that we've booked a 12-day trip back to the UK this August. This trip, we're going to want to rent a car. Unfortunately, our requirements are not very flexible:
- There are five of us. In the US, we usually book an Explorer, and the nearest equivalent would be a large MPV, though a large estate/station wagon might work
- We want an automatic
- We want to do one-way, with pick up at Heathrow and drop off in Chester (probably) after 8 days (followed by several days of train travel or no travel). That seems to restrict the options to Enterprise, Europcar and Hertz.

Any ideas?

Jerseygirl

Chester

Try carrentals.com. Pay using an AMEX card...for less than $30 take out their car insurance. We rented from Hertz via carrentals.com at Heathrow and dropped it in Chehsire.

mrken30

You used to have to enable the AMEX cover prior to renting the car and it was automatically charged to the card when you paid for the rental. It has been a long time since I used my AMEX for car rental and it may vary on the type of AMEX card. At the time I did it AMEX charged an extra $10 on the rental.

mrken30

I used 121carhire last year. Rented a small 7 seater (Citroen) , for 4 adults and a kid. I have one way rental from LHR to BHX and cost £415. The rental was a budget/avis vehicle. That was the larget car they had. We met someene on our trip that rented a VW 9 seater , but that was around £900 for 2 weeks.

tonrob

Still applies, but maybe closer to $25 per rental from memory.

mrken30

I found this interesting article about using credit cards for rental insurance.
Don't always refuse rental car insurance coverage; credit card protections become iffy
I paid an extra $30 on my travel insurance for rental car cover with $50 deductible taking the view if it's free you might get what you pay for. I would be interested to hear from anyone who has claimed off their credit card for rental car damage.

Owen778

OK, thanks all. That was helpful.

The problem with most of the collator websites is that it's impossible to differentiate between manual and automatic. Checking 121carhire did make me realise that I could use Thrifty too, as long as I went through the UK site. So far, our best bet seems to be a premium or luxury estate from them, but I'd like to find some sort of coupon code to reduce the price further.

mrken30

I did request an automatic in the UK, but when I got there I had the option of a manual or waiting till the morning for the possibility an automatic may be available.

Pulaski

Take a cab or train ride to somewhere away from LHR to pick up your vehicle - the mark-ups at LHR are insane - over 12 days the cost of the rental (car, "similar to" a Passat) in Gloucester was about £20 less per day.

If you took the train to Chester and rented from there you could avoid the one-way rental premium, and probably rent for one fewer days too.

mrken30

Train tickets can cost a fortune for 4 adults. I did also find that most of the one way rentals were cheaper for airport drop offs. Some companies wanted an extra £100 for one way

Pulaski

They can, but booked well ahead of time for a specific date and time, which would be known because of the booked flight, and for an off-peak time, trains can still be remarkably affordable. A train journey can also be a nice add-on "experience" for children visiting from the US.

Owen778

That's good advice, and something we've done before elsewhere, but I don't think it would work well here, partly for logistic reasons, and partly because of the risk of not getting a suitable car from a regional car hire office.

The UK is in many ways not set up well to do this - there aren't many rental locations near to Heathrow, plus more often than not, regional locations are on an industrial park on the ring road, rather than a site near the station.

Pulaski

They pretty much have to offer you something as big or bigger if they don't have the contracted vehicle class, and all the larger vehicles seem to be autos anyway when I have been looking. Still, I understand your angst if it absolutely has to be an automatic. Enterprise - They'll pick you up.™ ..... I was offered a free drop-off at the end of my rental without even asking - Enterprise had the best rate and it hadn't occured to me to use the free pick-up/ drop-off feature. ..... Even without that, a £10 cab ride could still save you a packet.

redgiant

I rent in the UK about 4 times a year when I fly back and I find the USD quotes tend to be a lot higher than the GBP quotes. I am flying back next week and I have a weeks hire from Heathrow for 80 pounds for a class D (large compact/standard) car. That's with Enterprise too BTW.

I have 3rd party excess cover costing about $50 a year so putting the rental on my US AMEX isn't necessary.

Pulaski

Please can you share your source, because across numerous well known and not-so-well-known web sites I, and others, have consistently found USD rates to match, or be cheaper than GBP rates. .... I also find renting through a travel site to be much cheaper than renting direct, even from Hertz, where I am a Gold Club member.