Car Hire

[Pirate Papy]

Hi

My wife and I are coming to Gran Alacant in Jan and Feb next year. Looking at the car hire prices it seems to have gone up by quite a bit from last year.I have been quoted £1200 for 8 weeks. Car type 4 door Megane.
Can anyone help with something more reasonable

Thanks

[Spurs]

I use centauro and the trick is find the cheapest you can off the main companies book it with a free cancellation clause then as the time gets nearer check prices again they usually get a lot cheaper cancel original and book again . I and several others on this forum do this regually and have seen hundreds of pounds come off each time .

I think the price you are being quoted is the standard price they would like to get but as the time gets closer and they don't have the bookings the prices tumble

[Pirate Papy]

Thanks Spurs for the info
Problem I have, the longer I leave it the higher the ferry prices go up (Portsmouth > Bilbao) if I want to bring my car over. The new ferry schedules come out in July so I have until then before I have to decide

[Chris C]

Wow that's expensive, I'm used to paying less than a quarter of that pro rata when I visit and hire a car for a few days at a time from Goldcar, Firefly. Mind I usually get a Corsa or Fiesta so don't know if that makes a big difference or not

[John H]

Ive got a car on hire next week for 31 days.......just checked the price, cancelled and rebooked and just saved the best part of 55 euros

Ford Fiesta for less than 100 euros including fees 

We were in Tenerife a couple of weeks ago Pirate Papy, I booked a car about 5 days before we went, it cost me 55 euros, when I'd looked a month before they wanted over 250 euros.

In Jan/Feb you need to think about the snow in Northern Spain, they experience very big snow falls...........thats after experiencing 6 metre waves on the Bay of Biscay!!

We used to drive down and do a bit of touring in northern Spain, after several horrendous crossings the wife refused to come that way, I refused to drive through France so we are back to flying down..........although not as much fun the flight costs + car hire costs are so much cheaper than using Brittany Ferries............the only downside is I cant take as much vino home.

Regards all

John

[Tony Gillam]

In January/February there should be plenty of availability so you can leave booking a car until just before you come. I've found that the differential on Ferry/Drive versus Fly/Hirecar has a breakeven point around four weeks. As you say you are coming down for eight weeks, I would guess that it would be cheaper to drive. As John has said though, you could meet adverse weather. I've driven down via LeHavre and back via Bilbao at that time of year and not had problems but weather can always be unpredictable. Depending on where in the UK you are starting from, you could consider a longer drive but cheaper crossing from Dover.

[chris and jackie]

We use email car hire with free cancellation, booked 3 months ago for June 16 days and price was 255 euros, just rebooked and price was 54 euros! No problem with a cheap car in Jan or Feb but limited availability for big vehicles.

[puddy-woo]

Do you know what the excess insurance charge per day is when hiring a car with emailcsrhire?  Also if you return the car full do you receive any sort of confirmation that this is how you returned it in order to get your fuel costs back (less the admin charge). Thanks


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[chris and jackie]

Not sure what the excess insurance is per day but on the website I think as we have an annual travel policy which covers and excess charges incurred,they always use Record. If you don't take excess insurance they block 950 euros on credit card but don't pass the debit.
 
We have never received a confirmation of what fuel is in tank but a refund has always come back on credit card if warranted.

[puddy-woo]

Thanks.  I have taken out an excess waiver for the year. Seems cheaper


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[DaveG]

We were booked on Brittany Ferries to come out on 10th Feb, one way as we intend to stop until mid July, cost for the ferry alone (2 people, 1 cat and 1 car was £445). On the 6th Feb the ferry was cancelled due to storm forecast, not unusual we found out at that time of year. As we had to be in Spain on the 15th we had no option but to drive. Left Manchester at 2pm on 9th Feb, stopped at Holiday Inn Folkstone overnight and got Eurotunnel train at 8am on the 10th. Very easy drive to overnight stop in motel just south of Bordeaux (used that westerly route to avoid the higher altitude routes through central France)set off on Thursday morning at 8am travelled via San Sebastion, Pamplona, Zaragoza, Teruel  and Valencia arriving in GA at 1830 again very easy drive almost no traffic most of the way. Total cost including fuel, tolls, tunnel and accommodation was £345. Stayed at or almost the prevailing speed limit all the way and car averaged 87mpg.
If you don't mind the drive I estimated that I did it a couple of hours faster than if I had travelled by ferry, cost £100 less and have the benefit of having the car here. Maybe I was lucky with the weather but the traffic at that time of year is very light anyway.
Dave.

[llamedos]

87 mpg, wow that's impressive.

[DaveG]

Yep it suprised me as well because with the load we had on board I was expecting something around 70 to 75.
Car is a 2015 Honda Civic Tourer 1.6 DTEC, see link below.
Dave




http://www.autoexpress.co.uk/honda/civic/92127/honda-sets-new-efficiency-record-with-100mpg-civic-run