Adelaide City – Best Independent Car Hire Companies
June 5, 2008 by Car Hire Insider · Leave a Comment
From our research and analysis, we found only Bargain Wheels can offer lower prices, particularly if you’re looking for a small to medium sized car. Check them but if you don’t find any deals, you can head straight to our recommended comparison site for Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty.
Bargain Wheels Go To Site
Cheaper prices for Economy to Mid-Sized new cars. Used cars available
Bargain Wheels obtains search results of three Adelaide independent companies. They do not display the final price until you click through which is inconvenient, but to simplify things, we found it’s only worth checking prices from A1 Car Rentals on their Small and Medium sizes. Most offers include 200km/day (A$0.20/extra km) but do double check the information supplied.
If you can rough it out a little with used cars, Acacia offers some old models that may potentially be cheaper still.
Best Comparison Site for the Major Car Hire Companies
June 1, 2008 by Car Hire Insider · 3 Comments
After thoroughly reviewing over 20+ popular car hire comparison sites as ranked on Google and Yahoo, we’ve uncovered the Top 2 Sites for comparing the live prices of Australia’s major car hire companies – Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, and Thrifty.
The smaller independent companies can be cheaper (especially for airport car rentals) but either way, you should get the best price offered by Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, and Thrifty to use as a benchmark.
After finding the lowest prices here, remember to check all the car hire coupons we’ve compiled to see if you can bag yourself further bonuses and discounts. Then after booking, be sure to apply our tips for saving $100s on car hire insurance by bypassing the car hire companies.
- Presentable site design
- Rewards (Qantas, Velocity) and Preferred Program (Avis, Budget, Hertz, Thrifty) membership input
- Discount Codes input
- Able to book child seats
- Vehicle details (e.g. luggage space, engine) shown with search results
- Modify or cancel booking online
- ‘Best Rate Guarantee’ matches lower price + further 10% discount within 8 hours of booking
- Tabbed comparison table looks good but not intuitive for first-time user and requires clicking around
- No ‘Green’ Hybrid cars or Station Wagons
- Provider’s terms and conditions not provided
- Clean, easy-to-use site
- Easy price comparison at a glance
- Most complete listing
- Modify or cancel your booking online
- Prices given for GPS, baby seats, excess reduction
- Summary terms and conditions displayed
- Price matching promise + $10 further discount within 3 days of booking
- No Rewards or Preferred Program membership input
- No Discount Codes input
- Call needed to reserve child seats
- Lowest prices / Best value – prices should not be more than if you checked each of the Big Boys’ sites individually (unless they themselves have special offers)
- Ability to view and easily compare live rental rates on one screen
- Ease of site navigation, car search and booking
- No hidden fees – the quoted price is final
- No credit card details or deposit required to place a booking
- Ease and ability to modify / cancel bookings at no extra cost – lock in the price today and if you find something better, just cancel it!
- Value-added features
- 1-3 day rental: Cost/day remains similar
- 4-6 day rental: Cost/day starts decreasing, more so for larger full-sized cars (e.g. Toyota Camry)
- 7+ day rental: Cost/day is usually at its lowest (possibly cheaper by $5/day for cheapest car, $20/day for full-sized)
This is a pretty reliable rule of thumb but actual prices may vary. Prices fluctuate from day to day depending on demand and supply and generally it’s better to book earlier rather than later. The Big Boys all have large networks so they serve pretty much every location you’ll need across Australia and carry a wide variety of car models and sizes.
