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.

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.

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!

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