Europcar Named World’s Leading Car Hire Company 2010

Europcar has been named the World’s Leading Car Hire Company (for the 4th year running), the World’s Leading Leisure Car Rental Company (for the 7th year running), as well as the World’s Leading Green Transport Solution Company (2nd win to date) at this year’s World Travel Awards.

They also nicked the title of Australasia’s Leading Car Hire Company but lost out to Avis who won both the World’s and Australasia’s Leading Business Car Rental Company.

The awards, held on 7th November 2010 in London, is the travel industry’s equivalent to the Oscars. The winning companies are voted for across a broad range of categories (from “leading” hotels, airlines, car hire companies, marketing campaigns, and so on) by almost 190,000 industry professionals worldwide.

The results highlight to us that in addition to being on top of the car rental game, Europcar places a notable emphasis on protecting the environment and acquiring a greener fleet. Perhaps, it may just be worth giving them a little preferential treatment the next time we hire.

Links:
Europcar
World Travel Awards

Car Hire Discounts from Partner Programs

Do you find yourself thinking that you have too many cards in your wallet, too many different loyalty programs and too many point schemes to consider? If so you probably feel you waste hours trying to understand the offers, when you would rather be planning the more enjoyable parts of your holiday.

Car hire is one such area, so we’ve taken a closer look at types of loyalty program tie-ups and point schemes you can find at Australia’s five major car hire providers – Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty. Read more

Frequent Renter Programs: Is There A Winner?

Are you driving in circles with your frequent renter program options but failing to get anywhere?

Loyalty programs are offered by all of Australia’s five major car hire companies, but at a glance it can be hard to determine if any are superior. So we set our research team to work to find you the answer. Read more

Snow Snow Snow! Winter 2010 Car Hire Guide is here!

We’ve updated our Winter Car Hire Guide for 2010. All you need to know about who and where to rent from! Have a look see and enjoy tearing up the slopes! Yeehaw!

Time’s a-ticking so pay attention: Europcar’s Earlybird Special offers 10% discount if you place your booking by 11 June 2010!

Top Ten Deals Now On Oodles

Oodles is one of our top two recommended car rental comparison sites for the Big Boys of Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty. In our Oodles review, we highlighted the site’s unique ability to plug in discount codes (or coupons) from Avis, Budget and/or Hertz when doing a search but had lamented the fact you need to seek out these discount codes in the first place.

Now, they’ve added a new section in their homepage featuring ‘today’s top ten deals’. Clicking on a coupon code will automatically enter it as part of your search criteria. You can enter one code each for Avis, Budget and Hertz to be searched in tandem. We like this as another step in the right direction to simplify, simplify, simplify. Now if only they’ll let us plug in discount codes from Europcar and Thrifty too!

Click to view Oodles website

Audi and Mini Cooper Cars For Hire

For those seeking for a little more elegance than the typical Holden’s, Toyota’s, Hyundai’s and the such, you don’t necessarily have to root out specialty car hire companies – you can still indulge in a sweet ride with a couple of options from the Big Boy companies. But alas, the prices will be “sweeter” too.

Audi A3, A4, A6

For a splash of style and sophistication, Europcar offers a range of cars from the luxury car maker Audi. You can choose from the A3 hatch, A4 sedan and wagon, A4 Cabriolet convertible (QLD, NSW, VIC only) or A6 sedan. Prices for a 3-day hire start at around A$110 per day and can reach A$190 depending on the make.

Click here for more details

Mini Cooper Cabrio Converitible

Thrifty offers up the Cabrio convertible at various Queensland locations. For a 3-day rental, you can expect daily charge to come in at A$130-140.

Click here to go to Thrifty

Car Hire Price Hike: 50% Up, So Now What?

Anyone who has rented a car from Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, or Thrifty before mid-2009 will be in for a big shock when they notice the not-so-modest jump in current car hire prices. Our original post on car hire costs to expect used to say a 1-week car hire for a full-sized sedan will cost you an average of A$290. Now, we’ve revised it to ask you to expect a cost around the A$430 mark. That’s a whopping 40-50% average price increase across Australia’s major city airports!

Why has this happened? (with thanks to Sarah for the question)
The global recession has hit the travel industry hard – just look at all the flailing airlines – and that includes car hire. The story as told by the major car rental companies is that they’ve had to slash their fleet in order to stay afloat in these bad times. As a result, with greatly reduced cars available, they’ve had to push up prices. How absolutely essential it is for them to raise prices this substantially, if at all, is open to debate.

What can we do about it?
Thankfully, most of the major price hikes have been reserved to the big global brands. If you want to stick with these known names, you will just have to fork out the money. But you may be more motivated to consider other options: Many of the smaller independent companies haven’t increased their prices (and even if they have, it’s by a lot less). We suggest you do a little extra research on alternative companies as now, more than ever, your savings will likely be sizable. A little digging can go a long way.

Oodles: A Snapshot

Oodles is a successful newcomer to car hire comparison scene offering up some differentiating features.

Our Verdict: If you are a frequent renter with Car Rental, Qantas Frequent Flyer or Velocity Rewards memberships, or you have Discount Codes from Avis, Hertz or Thrifty, there’s no more convenient place to compare and book your car hire.

Founded: 2007
Based: Melbourne
Companies searched: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Thrifty
Prices: Will not be higher than if you went to each of the rental companies’ sites. No extra mark ups, booking or agent fees. ‘Best Rate Guarantee’ will match a lower price on an equivalent car found within 8 hours of booking and add a further 10% discount
Of interest: Allows you to enter car rental membership, frequent flyer details or discount codes so you can automatically collect points or be shown discounted prices in the search results. Where the express pickup service is available, regular travellers can jump the queue

Their unique tabbed search results is well presented and highlights the cheapest available but if you want to see details of other results, you’ll have to click around. You can almost always find the cheapest price for each size category on Oodles, but our other recommended comparison site VroomVroomVroom tends to offer up more search results (e.g. green / hybrid cars).

Selecting a car will reveal all the necessary information from pickup and drop-off details and cost breakdown. Prices are final (but of course, excluding any further add-ons you may request). The booking form requires basic information but no credit card details are required and your reservation will be held for you at no obligation.

VroomVroomVroom: A Snapshot

VroomVroomVroom is a car hire comparison site based in Australia that compares live prices from Australia’s major car hire companies of Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty.

Our Verdict: Simplest and most user-friendly, it is our favourite place for quickly finding the lowest prices and placing a booking without having to go to each of the different sites if you intend to rent a car from any of these reputable global brands.

Founded: 2002
Based: Queensland
Companies searched: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Thrifty
Prices: Unless you have an offer code or membership discounts, Vroom will find you the exact prices as if you went to each of their sites. No extra mark ups, booking or agent fees. Their Price Promise guarantees to match a lower price on an equivalent car within 3 days of booking with a further $10 discount
Of interest: Partnering with CarbonNeutral, Vroom offsets the carbon emissions of each car hire at no extra cost to you as a renter

With their real-time car hire price comparison presented as a list, it makes it easy for you as a renter to immediately find the cheapest option for the car size you require. Leaving your mouse to hover over each item automatically displays an image of the hire car so you can picture the car you will getting.

Once you’ve selected your car, you’ll be shown pickup and drop-off details, a description of your vehicle and a breakdown of the costs. The final price listed is inclusive of all taxes and fees for the basic car hire so there will be no surprises upon pickup. Naturally, you have to pay more for further add-ons such as child seats or excess reduction, prices of which are also displayed.

The booking form is basic and simple to fill in. No payment or deposit is required, allowing you to secure a rental car far in advance at no risk or obligation.

Terms & Conditions: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Thrifty

Choose from the dropdown below for the Terms and Conditions of the Big Boy car rental companies (Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz and Thrifty). These are proper legal documents so be prepared for some wordy mumbo jumbo.

All are in PDF-format except for Hertz where you will be redirected to their website for online viewing of their Terms and Conditions.

Note: For easy and reliable price checks/bookings for these Big Boy companies, do have a look at the best sites for comparing car hire that we’ve carefully researched and handpicked.

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