Top Tips For Saving On Your Car Hire

Easy and effective ways to minimize your car hire costs and stretch your dollar.

Book the smallest car you can tolerate, aim for a free upgrade during pickup time. This is much easier than most people think. Car hire companies tend to carry more mid and full-sized cars than small cars and naturally, at any given time, they want to get as many of their cars out on the road as possible. It’s easier for them to rent out the smaller cars and in fact, they tend to overbook those class sizes with the intention to upgrade.

This all means if you book a small compact car and it isn’t available at your pickup time, you’ll get a free upgrade. It also means it’s usually in their own interest to bump you up to a larger class and keep the more popular small cars available for another potential customer.

Know that it doesn’t cost the company any more to upgrade you (or double or triple upgrade you) so don’t let them push you to pay for it. Having said that, if after your best negotiation efforts, the car hire agent insists you to pay a minimal extra amount (they would like to make some commission after all) and it’s still a deal too good to be true, feel free to go for it. At the same time, be prepared that you may simply end up with the smaller car.

Forget the brands, try the local independents. Rather than simply honing in on the big names of Avis, Hertz, Budget, Thrifty or Europcar, give the small companies a chance and you might just find yourself a fantastic deal. We’ve already compiled only the most worthy independent companies for each location so we highly recommend you take an additional 10 minutes (or even less) to do a quick check across them.

Hire from off-site airport companies. Only the Big Boys of Avis, Hertz, Budget, Thrifty and Europcar (also Redspot) are situated on-site. These companies are charged a Premium Location Fee by the airport authorities and that cost will be passed on to you. This ranges from about 10-16% of your total bill. Therefore, going with independent companies with airport depots located a few minutes off-site can lead to significant savings. It’s a cost-savings/convenience trade-off but some independents try to make it easier for you by offering complimentary transfer shuttles depending on your flight arrival time or delivering the car to the airport for you.

Check for hot current car hire deals, discount codes and coupons. There are always all types of hot (and lukewarm) deals coming and going. Be sure to have a look at those we’ve dug up to see if you can capitalize on any of the current specials.

Don’t fall for the insurance pitch. All Australian car hires come with a certain level of insurance coverage. During pickup, car hire agents will likely offer you the ability to extend your coverage (e.g. damages to windscreen, tyres, headlights if originally excluded) and lower the Collision Damage Liability/Excess (e.g. from A$2750 to A$300), but usually at an painfully high cost of ~A$12-26/day. This can really add up and in fact, insurance is quite a money-spinner for these companies.

Don’t be swayed by any hard-sell tactics or let them scare you into it for there are other ways to get covered for much less. Read our article on how to save on your car rental insurance.

Fuel – don’t go prepaid and always refuel before returning. If offered, it’s advisable you DON’T take the prepaid fuel option because if you don’t use all the fuel, you’ve paid for more than you needed. And trying put every last drop to good use is a lot harder than you’d think. Instead, before driving away, remember to ask the car hire agent for the nearest petrol stations to their depot. Then always top up the tank to full before you return the car otherwise, they’ll charge you for it at rates far higher (possibly multiple times) than at the stations.