Melbourne Airport – Best Independent Car Hire Companies
Hiring from the companies located on-site Melbourne’s Tullamarine airport (Avis, Hertz, Budget, Thrifty or Europcar) will incur you a 17% Premium Location Fee which you can avoid by either hiring from Melbourne city (of course) or the independent car hire companies located about 5 minutes off-site. Amongst these, we’ve filtered through the duds and overpriced to find the ones with the best rates.
East Coast Car Rentals Go To Site
Great value for All Car sizes with unlimited km’s
With over 20 years of history, East Coast Car Rentals have recently expanded to serve Melbourne Tullamarine Airport. With unlimited mileage included in all their rentals, they offer likely one of the best rates across all vehicle sizes from the economy Toyota Yaris hatchback (manual), mid-sized Toyota Corolla sedan, standard Toyota Camry, Mitsubishi Outlander SUV and Kia Carnival van.
The standard damage liability is A$3000 that will cost A$13.20/day or less to lower to A$200. Being a few minutes off-site, they will arrange a courtesy shuttle to transfer you to and from Tullamarine Airport. Placing a booking online will require you to input your credit card details but you will only be charged when you arrive at their depot for your pickup.
Bargain Wheels Go To Site
New/Used Small and Mid-sized Cars. Used Cars only for Large/Full-sized. Unlimited km’s
The prices you can find via Bargain Wheels are certainly competitive especially for rentals 3 days and under after taking into account they include unlimited km’s (as offered by Spendless Car Rentals). They are located just 3 minutes off-site and offer free pickup and return service from both the airport or your local accommodation.
Or, depending on how comfortable you are with the idea, you could go for their used cars for some extra savings (e.g. a 7-day rental for a mid-size may cost you A$230 for a new car but only A$200 for a used car) but you probably run a higher risk of running into car problems. For anything larger than the mid-sized Toyota Corolla sedan, they only carry used cars. They have a collision damage liability/excess of A$2500 and an extra A$15/day reduces it to A$350.
Discount Car Rental Go To Site
Low prices particularly for Compact to Full-sized Sedans and Vans. Only 250km/day
Rent for 2 or more days and there’s a good chance you’ll find decent savings (particularly on Compact Toyota Corolla hatchbacks, Intermediate Corolla sedans and the Standard-sized Toyota Camry and Vans). Their rates include only 250km/day with a standard Collision Damage Liability on cars of A$2750 that can be lowered to A$550 for A$16/day (which is cheaper than the Big Boys who charge between A$25-27/day) and they offer a free customer pick-up and return service to the airport. A cheaper “Metro Package” is also offered on a small hatchback for city-drivers who don’t need more than 100km/day.
Alpha Car Hire Go To Site
Worth a check for Full-sized sedans with 500km/day
With 500km’s included per day, Alpha may be the cheapest for a Family-sized car like the Toyota Camry. Any extra mileage is charged at 27.5 cents/km although you’ll be hard-pressed to exceed that allowance! Alpha’s standard collision damage liability comes in at A$3300. If you want to lower this, their cheapest liability reduction option costs A$17.33/day to get your excess down to A$550, getting cheaper the longer you rent.
Do check their Specials section which often serves up some goodies like 1 Free Day, 20% off or Free Add-ons.
Alternatively, see if you can use this voucher for A$10 off any 3-day or more car hire, or A$20 off for 14 days or more.
Airport Rent-A-Car Go To Site
Value on Economy Manual, Compact Auto hatchbacks. 500km/day
Airport Rent-a-Car’s hatchbacks are often are cheaper than the Big Boys (particularly during non-holiday periods where they offer 10% discounts – at the time of writing, this is being offered in June and July 2011). The rentals include 500km/day (A$0.25/extra km). Their standard Collision Damage Liability is a little high at A$3300 which you can reduce to A$330 for A$23/day (yes, that’s pricey and we strongly recommend you look at alternative rental car insurance options). Located 5 minutes off-site, they offer free pickups from the airport. The site is somewhat wordy so you’ll need to scroll down a little to get to the booking section.
I can see why you have only 29 followers on twitter…Airport Rentacar and Alpha Car Rental are the same company…East Coast car rentals are not even a Victorian Registered business (which they are required to be). All your independant car rental recomendations for Victoria/Melbourne/Melbourne Airport are Queenslanders and Queensland organisations including BargainWheels. You need to do your homework, and look more closely at truly Victorian & Melbourne based Independant Car Rental Companies there a quite a few that leave these Qland Companies you recomend well behind.
You must be a Queenslander as well? or they pay you handsomely for your efforts?
As I say it’s easy to see why you only have 29 followers… cheers
Jack: Ouch. As a matter of fact, I’m not a Queenslander and none of those companies have made me a penny for my efforts. I’m simply an independent writer.
The reason why those companies are listed is only because in the course of researching, their prices have proved to offer value as compared to the major car hire companies (Avis, Hertz, etc). It was pure chance our findings resulted in a majority of QLD-owned companies for Melbourne. And whether Airport Rent-a-car and Alpha are owned by the same company, if the prices or terms on their website differ (and they do), it’s worth listing both since a renter may find a better suited deal on one site vs. the other.
The original idea wasn’t to find Melbourne-based companies for Melbourne, but any value independent company serving Melbourne i.e. if a Queensland company offers a competitive price in Victoria, it will be included since the customer probably isn’t too fussed where the company is registered. The idea of independent companies is simply that they aren’t some global foreign-owned enterprise.
We try to uncover sites which are easy to book online and offer value. Naturally, in the course of researching, there may be other gems out there that have been overlooked but it’s not on purpose or monetary-motivated. We’re always open to recommendations for us to look into because as I said, our goal IS to advise readers on the best value companies. So, since it appears you know what you’re talking about in Melbourne/VIC, we would appreciate it if you could give us a list of better companies that will leave the ones we have listed behind in the dust, as you say. That way, we can make some constructive changes.
It’s true we don’t have many followers on Twitter but we haven’t really quite pushed it at all. I reckon our site is still pretty small-time and not getting hoards of traffic to garner a huge following at this point. In fact, why don’t you follow us? Hah! We’re just trying to make the car hire maze an easier one to navigate and always trying to improve.
Hope this allays some of your skepticism. Cheers!
For what it counts, I think Jack is a bit of a whinger and you will find his sort no matter what you publish on your site.
I have never hired from an independent…. I didn’t even know they existed. So reading this page looks like it is about to save me a bit of money.
As such, unlike Jack, I am quite happy with what you have presented here.
Thanks and keep up the good work.
Luke: Thank you for taking the time to voice your support! It definitely counts
Am glad we were able to open up your options. I would also advise you to read the article on car hire insurance if that’s something you’re considering getting – there’s potentially significant savings to be made there too! It’s non-hating folks like you that make the work on this site worth it! 
I think Jack you will find you do not need to be registered or licensed within Victoria to run a car rental company.
I think this site is awesome! Really helped in finding cheaper rates, and the section on insurance is really good as well. I reckon we will be saving around $130 – 150. Thanks for the help!
Janine: Thanks for the thanks!
Makes our day when we hear we’ve helped save people from the clutches of money-hungry corporations hah! Merry X’mas and Happy New Year!
Hi. Thanks for posting these, but here’s my warning against booking with an independent. Watch out for their cancellation policies, (which the big car hire companies don’t have – they don’t even ask for your credit card details when you make a booking).
I rarely leave negative feedback, but I had a very unpleasant experience with Spendless Car Rentals at Tullamarine, Melbourne. As happens, my travel plans were cancelled, and I had to cancel my car hire too. Knowing that their offices were closed Christmas Day and Boxing Day, I called on the 27th giving 6 days notice instead of 7, was told that was all fine and my credit card would be re-credited the following day, and then opened my emails to find I’d been charged a $60 cancellation fee!! Upon following up I was told I should have cancelled earlier – even though I couldn’t because their offices were shut. Don’t give your credit card details to this company, and think twice before taking the cheap option.
Anna: Sorry to hear about your experience and thanks for sharing your story with us. It’s unfortunate when companies don’t fully understand the importance of good customer service. Not all independents are bad news though, it’s just even more important that one takes the time to fully understand their terms & conditions. Sometimes, it’s a bit of a luck game too. Cheers.