Car Hire

[kevinb]

Been looking at car hire for June for three and a half weeks, over a thousand pounds! Can't imagine people will pay those prices. Anyone got any recommendations for off airport car hire ? Would be grateful for any advice.

[Blue and white stripes]

That's a lot. it costs me approx 700 euros a year to keep my car in Spain, airport parking, tax, insurance and MOT ( and you get to keep the petrol).

[Andy L]

We always used Paul at Xtra Car Hire.

[Dave C]

Likewise, Xtra Car hire recommended

[chris and jackie]

Had 10 days with goldcar recently for €100 , great 4 d polo with reversing cameras etc, very quick collection.

However they are back to bad practices, 2 marks which would have taken 10 minutes to polish out were classed as damage & got charged 263euros !! Probably there before but didn’t notice

Complained & girl on desk was apologetic & said new check in staff employed to obviously get money in.

[Spurs]

Whole car hire system is madness at the moment I just looked at prices to hire for 8 days  29th mar to 5th April centauro are quoting €560 ... won’t be paying that it’s taxis for me .

They have all reduced the fleets over pandemic and now the prices are crazy . They will go out of business at these prices because no one is gonna pay that .

Last time I was out in Feb there was no one at the carhire desks waiting ,the prices were again crazy and I again used cabs

[John H]

For a few years we've all got used to hiring cars at ridiculously low rates.......in fact far cheaper than you could lease a car for.
With the current global shortage of new cars I doubt that the rental companies are buying new cars in at the massive discounts they previously enjoyed, although the cars they are disposing off are probably realising more than they expected if second hand car prices in Spain are at the crazy levels they are in the UK.
Would I hire a car at these prices, yes I would as I guess countless others will...... perhaps these car hire companies will find that less cars at higher prices will ultimately deliver them far higher levels of profit.

Regards all

John

[Blue and white stripes]

It was the ridiculous car hire prices and the change to the full/empty fuel policy which finally persuaded us to buy a car over here in 2010. Up to that point the car hire prices had always been reasonable and you only paid for the petrol you used, not the full tank.

[kevinb]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I wouldn't trust Goldcar any further than I can throw them. I'm thinking about buying a car for Spain but as mentioned second hand car prices are insane. I suspect that hire prices will fall when nobody hires .Will likely bus and foot it this year.

[NickiH]

Thanks for the feedback everyone, I wouldn't trust Goldcar any further than I can throw them. I'm thinking about buying a car for Spain but as mentioned second hand car prices are insane. I suspect that hire prices will fall when nobody hires .Will likely bus and foot it this year.

We bought a car about 12 years ago. We have changed it twice but gosh so much easier and cheaper than hiring one in the long run. No standing around in queues at the airport to pick up the hire car.  We arrive and jump in a taxi then we have the car when we are here. They are more expensive than at home second hand, but we reckon we have saved hundreds over the years

[wilson]

We nearly always hire a car, our favourite over the last 4 years has been Centauro, you become a gold member and they seem to treat you right. In a murky pond of sharks they seem to do the right thing. The secret is to book early, we’re now booking into 2023. We then recheck the prices sometimes they’ve reduced so we cancel and rebook but usually they increase. Feb half term we paid €140 for 10 days all inclusive on checking the week before the price was pushing €400. I’ve crunched the numbers many times over the last 20 years to hire or buy and buying always costs more for us.