Holiday car hire

[L3nny]

Heading to Italy in May and need to hire a car for 8 days.

There will be 4 of us and 2 large cases so we need something reasonably large. A C-Max would be ideal.

Cheapest I have seen so far is just shy of £300 but then they will add on all the extras like excess waiver and the like so not sire of the true price.

Which sites do you use to book your holiday car hire.

Thanks.

You will also need a deposit in italy

i used Budget when i was in the States and hired it over there. What a nightmare that was, some of it my fault but much of it theirs so firstly get it all sorted before you go.

Budget were extremely sneaky in as much that they said bring the car back empty, it will be full to start so you will be charged for a full tank but they can get a preferential price at the pumps so it makes sense. All true, noted on the invoice that it was at least 5 or 6 cents a gallon cheaper. What i also noted was they charged me 20 gallons, on looking up the specs for the car we hired i noticed the tank capacity was 17.5 gallons. be interested to see know how many times they get away with that little trick...

Have you looked at 121carhire

[Stu]

I used http://www.anycarhire.com/ for France.
It was just the cheapest from googling compare car hire.

It also recommended Mondial assistance to insure the Excess so I got that separately, I suppose it was a tiny bit cheaper than buying direct from Alamo (who anycar hire put me with) but Alamo gave me a 2nd driver for free which Mondial didn't extend to.
At the pick up desk Alamo/Europcar/another company with green livery had a huge queue when all the rest were empty - so they probably are the cheapest.

Don't get hung up about searching for a specific car such as the C Max. I booked a fiesta, the confirmation came through as a Punto, they offered me a 500 at the desk & I argued for a Polo.

[Stu]

Originally Posted by Davie

You will also need a deposit in italy

Do you mean a credit or debit card? - same as anywhere.

Being Italian i go back twice a year. Take my advice and make sure you choose a car that has zero excess as Italians think nothing about scrapping against a car and driving off. It may be a teeny bit more expensive but worth the piece of mind. Over the years i have been using Carhire3000 and they will usually have a bunch of cars that are either zero excess, refundable excess (can be a pain to claim as well as normal excess.

I used moneysupermarket.com to get the best price when I hired a car in turkey. works just like insurance comparison, put in the details and see who comes up cheapest.

By the way what part are you going to?

[L3nny]

Thanks for the advice, best price I have foind so far is the Money supermarket site but the company I directs me to doesn't tell you what the excess waiver costs.

I am flying into Milan then taking a couple of days to drive down to Tuscanny where I am attending a friends wedding. Then a couple of days to drive back.

So if you know of any nice things to see on the way that will also be good too