The good news is, car hire is fiercely competitive in many holiday destinations, so you can easily drive (sorry) prices down easily. Yet this works best before they’re busy, so book early. Also if you’re planning to drive a long distance, do check there are no extra mileage fees.
Think insurance before you start or you’ll massively overpay
Before looking at the cheapest car hire, it's important to remember that they make big money selling you the insurance, and it won’t be included in the headline price. So don’t just sign up, willy-nilly, ensure you read the Cheapest Hire Insurance section first.
Step 1. Use a comparison site to automatically shop around
Try comparing prices yourself and by the time you get a good deal you'll have missed your holiday. Yet you can search scores of car hire companies in minutes by using special screenscraper websites; here you enter your requirements and they zip them to a host of car hire websites and report back the cheapest. In other words they're ‘search-and-report’ sites that 'scrape' the data off other sites' screens to get you the prices.
My top pick is Travelsupermarket*, while a bit clunky it searches by far the biggest range, though if you’ve time it’s worth a quick check on one of the others, Traveljungle, Atlas Choice and Car Hire Search. Again, remember don’t fall for the insurance trap, you can get car hire insurance cheaper elsewhere.
Step 2. Now quickly check the ones you’ve missed
Brokers are companies which list many car hire providers and have their own direct commercial relationships with them. As such they usually have their own special offer prices. Many of the screenscrapers automatically search brokers, but the following are missed out, so for belt and braces you should include them:
These are Car Rentals, Travelocity and Car Jet (for Spain, Portugal and UK only). If you're hiring in the US Sidestep and Priceline* are cheap too.
Step 3. Are you also booking a flight and or hotel?
If you're booking a package, ie a ‘flight & car’ or ‘hotel & car’ there are a few brokers who will give you an additional discount if you book them all together including Expedia* and Travelocity. Of course always compare these to the cheapest standalone prices though, more details in Cheap Flights or Cheap Hotels articles.
If going to the US, it's worth looking at ‘flydrive’ package holiday deals as these can be much cheaper plus you can haggle down the price of the overall package (See Cheap Package Holidays).
Step 4. Do you have any Tesco club card vouchers?
It’s possible to get Avis car hire for a quarter of the list price if you have Tesco Clubcard vouchers (from in-store spending at Tesco). That’s because Avis is listed in Tesco’s Clubcard deals brochure; and when you redeem anything in there, a normal £5 voucher is worth £20. For more info Tesco Deals in the Boost Nectar, Tesco, Airmiles Points & More article.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar