24 November 2022

How to Choose the Car Hire Firm for your Holiday

Check out our handy guide for choosing a car hire company to meet your requirements

We’ve all been in that situation when you run a quote for car hire online and you get a number of choices of firm, it’s often hard to tell what makes them different when they’re priced similarly and offer matching packages. So, which should you go for? We give you our top tips below.

When it comes to car hire, you really want your rental to work for your trip or holiday and not have to work around what the company will allow. Firstly, we would suggest making a list of exactly what you would like.

The list of things we would consider include but are not exclusive to:

• Would you like a car hire firm that is on airport?
• Would you like rental with a fair fuel policy?
• Do you need to use a debit card for your rental?

All of the above can limit your choice. Our handy filter on MoneyMaxim’s car hire search engine enables you to select exactly what you want from your car hire at the click of a button.

Secondly, price is a factor for us all, especially now when we’re seeing the cost of living increasing what feels like constantly. Remember though, if you go for a budget firm you are more likely to have a small queue at the desk, after all if you were attracted by the price so too will many others have been! You may also find they are keen to sell you extras at the desk such as vehicle upgrades or excess insurance.

A large proportion of budget firms have a great fleet of new or nearly new vehicles. So, it is worth not discounting them as an option but if you do select a cheaper company then do be prepared to potentially stand your ground at the desk!

If you are looking for a smoother experience, it could be worth looking for a slightly more premium brand who don’t perhaps rely so much on income made from sales at the car hire desk.

Lastly, you may want to purchase insurance to waive your car hire excess. There are a growing number of car hire firms who are now offering full excess insurance however there are some whose excess cover will only marginally reduce your excess.

Make sure that you read the terms of the hire or look at the packages that are offered by the firm you are wanting to go for. Check that you meet the requirements and can use that package and that it covers the areas your particularly want it to.

On our sister website, Clarify Car Hire, we make it so easy to see all packages offered by a firm. This means you can compare them and select the one which best meets your requirements.

The format the packages are shown on Clarify Car Hire mean that it is easy to compare what is in each package plus the excess and deposit amounts.

We hope that this guide helps steer you towards what to look for when you go to select your next car hire and gives you some handy pointers as to where firms can differ.