The Lemon Fool

When I hire a car through the US website I get quoted some 15% cheaper than when I get a quote through the same company's UK web site for the identical car. I have noticed this on a number occasions for cars hired in France and Italy.

Why? Is it all down to exchange rates fluctuations? Or more likely a function of the home market with car hire costs in USA being much cheaper than in the UK?

T7

It may be something to do with US credit cards providing insurance on hire cars.

Probably just a function of what people are prepared to pay; domestic US customers probably want to pay less than a UK person on holiday is willing to pay.

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:Ts and Cs can be significantly different too. You have to read the small print to understand. Sometimes I get a quote for what I want off Holiday Autos. Then I use that to compare with booking directly on the hire company website. Often there is a difference in price. But always be wary of Ts and Cs being very different. Often booking with Holiday Autos is better and includes free cancellation, unlimited miles etc... that a direct booking doesn't always provide.

Although a risk you take by booking through an agent such as Holiday Autos is that if anything goes wrong then you have an extra layer to go through to get the issue resolved. I have read numerous stories of people booking through agents and cars not being available or offices closed if the flight was delayed.

I am not saying don’t book through an agent, and I often do, but only if the price difference is worth it. In fact Holiday Autos was my preferred choice up to 2013 when Lastminute.com sold them to Car Crawler and then their offering changed and was nowhere near as good.

ReallyVeryFoolish wrote:I always book hire car insurance separately and decline the offers at the car hire desk.

RVF

So do I, but you have to be prepared for the ‘discussion’ at the car hire desk, and there is the slight nag at the back of your mind about whether the company you bought the insurance from will actually pay up if needed.

In some places my preference is to go with a company that includes full damage insurance and generally rent slightly older cars who have ‘lived a little’ and then I don’t have to worry about parking a brand new unmarked car and whether it will be in the same condition when I return.

Car hire is a commonplace in the USA and so I think that makes it a more competitive market.

Generally when you rent via the UK you will get some basic CDW albeit with a high deductible. In the USA most rentals don’t incude any insurance as US renters will have some cover via their normal car insurance policy, their company and their credit cards. What I have noticed that when renting via the UK the insurance may include CDW but not liability insurance which also isn’t covered by the excess insurance policies which I usually buy on an annual basis. So in the US you will often have no option but to pay $100/week extra to get cover.

Different US states have different rules on mandatory insurance for rental cars. When I lived in Colorado I realised that the minimum cover level that the rental company was obliged to provide in the standard price was sufficient, I stopped buying supplemental insurance, and saved a fortune as I hired cars every weekend for 2 years.

Some digression I fear.

The T&Cs (as far as I can see) are the same, the car is identical - the location is the same 0 hence why does the hire company offer me - a UK resident - a substantially lower tariff if I go through the US site as oppose to the UK site?

I suspect that it is because their US clients are used to paying lower prices in their home market. I remember something similar with the pricing of smart phones. The price in the UK being considerably higher than for the identical phone in the US (ex VAT.

T7)