Car rental in UK

Yep. It works pretty much like it does in the U.S. Some of the same corporations, as well

If you plan to use a credit card for insurance coverage, be sure to ask what kind of proof you will need to bring with you. E.g., a letter from the credit card issuer stating the terms and limits of the coverage you have.

Booking a car on line is easy. I'd recommend calling the specific office handling the rental with your questions.

If it doesn't say so at a web site, the car has manual transmission. If you want an automatic, be sure to specify it.

The cheapest cars are small, even by UK standards. Be sure there's room for all your luggage in these cars. (That's the kind of thing you might call to ask about,)

Plenty of places in London or Manchester will be happy to rent ("hire" in localese) you a car. But, Manchester is a big city, and London is an urban sprawl of well more than 10 million people. I strongly recommend avoiding driving in either. Or, in any large city. (If you want to see London after Shrewsbury, take the train in.) Rent and drop off a car in smaller towns, like Shrewsbury, or Oxford, or Reading, etc..

Hmmmm.......not complete agreement with the above.

I've no idea how many cars I've rented in the UK, but it was maybe four or five last year for a total of a couple of months.

Starting over..........................

You can do what you said.

Both Heathrow/Gatwick and Manchester airports are dead easy in and outs with a rental car. Driving in Manchester city is not hard. Driving in London proper is not worth the time or trouble.

There may be a drop fee between England and Scotland. Not much, maybe thirty bucks, but it caught me by surprise a couple of months back with an Edinburgh to Manchester deal.

Glasgow airport is also an easy in and out.

Just because you ask for an automatic doesn't mean one will be available when you show up.

Renting cars all over the world, I've never had to show what my credit card covered in the way of insurance. What you do is decline the agency's cdw. Period. If your cc covers it good, if not have deep pockets - - to the point of replacing the car. All three of my cc's take care of it, but AmExp is the best.

I rent the smallest car available, even when traveling with my wife. We've always been able to get all our stuff in it. If for some reason you can't, walk back in and get a bigger one.

Some people will recommend using a consolidator such as AutoEurope. I don't like to since you have to prepay and, if the goods aren't available when you arrive, you can't walk over to the next guy's counter and ask him to match the deal.

It's a very simple process and not the big deal many make it out to be. I use kayak.com and take care of it while twiddling my thumbs at the departure gate. Sometimes I forget - - I can still get it done during the take-off roll if I keep the phone hidden beside my leg. It's that simple - - a two minute exercise. Along the same lines, I've never noticed a significant price differential for a given period between snooping around months ahead of time and getting it as described in the preceding. I've been at this for decades and decades and have never once talked to an agency ahead of time about anything. I've asked questions at the counter a couple of times just to make sure that some of the things I've read in forums were as ridiculous as I thought they were - - yep.

Ditto Ed. Ignore any rental company hard sell on insurance, e.g. "How are YOU going to pay for damage to MY car?" Use your credit card coverage. I also use Amex Premium. Book directly with the rental company--it's best to have only one butt to kick if there's a problem.

Very few people in the UK have any kind of car insurance coverage offered through credit cards. Hence the rates offered to residents are nearly always inclusive of such things as CDW. Interestingly these are little more if anything than those offered without CDW to residents of some other countries, but maybe they consider the risk is somewhat less.

There is relatively little extra to pay for a car in Group D compared with A but anything larger takes a step change.

We are doing a similar trip (renting at Heathrow, returning at Edinburgh. The drop off fee is 51 GBP (about $86.00). There is also a fee for picking the car up at the airport, but that was included in what we paid Autoeurope. (the drop off fee is not). We thought it was worth it to fly out of Edinburgh rather than drive all the way back to London. Other than the drop off fee, you should have no problem dropping your car off in Glasgow.

Traveling in the UK and paying in euro?

Kathleen,

Especially if you haven't driven in the U.K. before, you may find it a bit easier to rent in Manchester than London. I found getting out of the rental lot at Manchester airport was quite easy. I'd suggest taking a few minutes at the agency to familiarize yourself with the layout of controls before ever turning a wheel. That way you'll be able to clarify things with the rental agent if needed.

I've found that the rental car insurance provided by credit cards can be a bit confusing. You'll need to decline specific items on the rental contract. Rental car insurance is often not provided by the credit card firm, but rather a separate insurance company. Be sure that you're clear on the insurance. These days I usually just opt for the zero deductible CDW coverage offered by the rental firm as it's the easiest solution.

You might consider packing along a GPS and / or a good Map. Also, I've found that driving in the U.K. always takes longer than planned, so be sure to allow lots of time for each of the trips you'll be taking.

I second the notion to get the smallest car that will work for you; if only to save on the price of gas. Fuel was a shocker for me...it works out to about $8 a gallon. The other consideration is that the roads and parking places are much smaller than I was used to in the US. Having a smaller car meant I didn't hit the kerb quite as often!

Can anyone tell me if it is a good idea to take out travel insurance with collision & theft coverage for a rental car? We had a minor incident with our rental car last time we were in England (rock thrown up into windscreen, scratches on bonnet) and were worried that Amex would not cover major damage (obviously our American car insurance does not cover us in England/Europe). We would like zero liability but the travel insurance website I looked at advised that some rental companies do not allow travel insurance as CDW. That doesn't make sense to me, since payment is payment, but I thought I'd better ask some experts. Amex did attempt to contact Europcar/National but never received any documents so Amex closed the case. My husband does have a frequent renter account with National so perhaps there is a certain amount of play in that. But if serious damage occurred, we'd like to have the peace of mind of being covered.

Suggestions? (We're returning in April.)

Ed, at al:

I rented at Thrifty in Inverness last time and was told -- via a notice on their site -- that I needed to show written proof of my credit card insurance coverage at the office when I picked up the car. Without proof, I'd be billed for insurance at their rates. I called the card issuer (Visa) and they were not at all surprised about this. They sent me a form letter that I took with me. The Thrifty clerk asked for it. I provided it. All was well.

I'll also stand by my oft-repeated suggestion that folks who have never driven in the UK avoid getting off a long flight and driving away from Heathrow, Gatwick, etc.

Driving in the UK is not difficult. But, it is different if you are an American visitor. The differences extend beyond what side of the car you sit on. (Signage, for example. And, do you know what the color of the paint on the curb means?)

Vacations are supposed to be fun. I've lived in the UK, and visited more than several times. I've driven to and from Heathrow more times than I can count. It is nowhere near the top of my "How To Start My Trip" list.

Thank you all for your tips. With all the warnings about Heathrow,we were just considering hiring the car in Shrewsbury instead. We would take a train or other public transport to Shrewsbury, spend the day ahead and the day after the wedding walking around the area and then rent our car the following day. That would make it Monday. We would save two days of auto rental, but have to pay for the train ride to Shrewsbury. Any thoughts?

Kathleen - I would go with your amended plan. Train to Shrewsbury (buying tickets in advance if you can), the just hire the car for a few days less. In fact, I might consider taking the train where you can, and just getting a hire car where you cant - of for those days you want to go out of reach of a train. Trust me - after a long flight into Heathrow, the last thing you want to do is worry about traffic on the M25 (the ring road around London), the M1 (or M40), or the M6. Driving here isn't difficult, but it is different.