Rental Car

We had good luck with Avis, but I can't help you with the other questions. When we're in England, we opt for the automatic transmission. There's enough to think about with driving on the other side, the narrow roads, and using a navigation system. I can't even imagine what it would be like if I had to shift gears with my left hand with everything else.

Thanks for the reply :-) My husband is from england and although it's been awhile since he has driven there, he thinks he will be fine with the manual transmission. I will have to see what the price difference is :-)

It is quicker & easier to get from Heathrow to Bath than York. The Heathrow Connect train is about half the price of the Heathrow Express & follows the same route but adds about 3 stops.

So, you end up in Paddington which has trains to Bath about very 30 minutes. Book in Advance a specific train for cheapest prices for PAD > BTH. www.firstgreatwestern.co.uk

Don't know what train to book? Give yourself plenty of leeway by booking a later one than expected. Then, if at Paddington early, go to the train manager (by the rear locomotive) & say you have a ticket for a later service but could you board his/her train without penalty?
www.nationalrail.co.uk
http://www.travelsupermarket.com/c/cheap-car-hire/uk/

I use www.kayak.com to get a read on rentals but then I book directly with the rental company. Search engines and consolidators can't take into account discounts like corporate or auto clubs.

I have booked my rental cars through Autoeurope many times. They are a consolidator and it has always gone smoothly for me. This last trip I had a rental in France (went off without a hitch) and a rental in England (we had a hitch). We ended up with a counter person who was quite the salesman. He kept trying to "upgrade" us making it sound like it was "in our best interest" to do so. (we were 4 people and out luggage would not fit well in the car he had available at the price we had booked at). I had purposely booked a "family size" car to handle our luggage. We went round and round (he was also pushing a GPS car saying we would "need it" and would not manage well without it. It was 45 pounds a day!) I could handle all that ("I am on a budget and do not want to pay anymore than what I agreed with..which was a family size vehicle at this price".) Then we hit a snag. He absolutely was not going to rent us the car without us taking their insurance. The problem with dealing with this is he was never clear on why. I had purchased travel insurance through CSA, but he said he could not accept this third party insurance. I am pretty sure there are real reasons why he could not (he had backed off everything else, but not this). The insurance was 50 pounds a day!! We were going to have the car for 14 day, so that was 700 pounds. (over a $1000 for a car that I had paid less than $400 dollars to rent). This was zero deductible...he had another insurance but insisted the deductible would be too much for us to handle in case of an accident. (this guy was quite the salesman because he "always had our best interest at heart and was here to help us). I stood at the counter and called Autoeurope from my cell phone. A female answered the phone and asked how she could direct my call. When I explained, the first thing she said is "we can help you". She transferred me to a male whose first comment was "they do this all the time". He talked to the guy. In the end, I gave him my Mastercard that I had booked the car with and that comes with car rental insurance and he had to take it. I still would have used my CSA insurance if needed, but my Mastercard was acceptable and CSA was not. (which he did not mention). I say all this to say that I was thankful to have booked with a consolidator who was there to help me. This guy was not going to give me a car without me taking the insurance...until they stepped in. In the end, the guy told us we could take "any car in section 3". We went out and found a VW Passat which had a HUGE trunk. I came away a little shell shocked and it is only as my husband discussed it later that we realized how he had tried to maneuver into paying more without us even fully realizing it. It was the first time I had to use Autoeurope's 24 hour helpline...but I was so thankful for it! Sorry for the long winded explanation. Everything else with our car rental went great...and no claims will be filed with anyone!

Hello All,
am finding conflicting info regarding rental car in UK then ferry to Ireland. a foreign Use fee is charged at 60% of total car rental! is this standard for all rental companies in England? quote came from Sixt, first, they didn't ask if car crossing borders, then this charge would have been quite a surprise when I picked up car in London! 60% is lot of money. anybody out there have suggestions for side trip to republic of Ireland. only a couple of days out of 16 involve crossing border, don't understand why the 60% is charged against total 16 day trip????
Thanks for comments,

regards/
dona K

I also use Auto Europe and have never had a problem. Almost a month ago I rented a car at Heathrow using Europcar. The counter person tried to upsell us. He said he had a car that was a diesel and would save on gas. He said we would enjoy driving it more and it had a built in GPS. He never said it would cost more money. I've been upgraded before, so I didn't think twice about it. Then I got a funny feeling and asked him if there would be an extra charge. He said it was "only" £18 extra. I told him we wanted the car we had paid for and would not spend any additional money. We have our own GPS and it was a 4 day rental. How much did he think we would save driving a diesel!

Will you have a car your entire trip? I think your idea to bring booster seats is a good one. You can buy them I expensively. You can always leave them behind if you want.

Then, if at Paddington early, go to the train manager (by the rear locomotive) & say you have a ticket for a later service but could you board his/her train without penalty?

And be prepared for them to say no. "Advance" tickets are valid ONLY on the exact train named on the reservation ticket and are worthless on any other train.

If you attempt to board or are discovered on board without a valid ticket you will face a Penalty Fare (the greater of £20 (perhaps to rise fairly soon) or double the single open fare) or at best a full fare ticket.

Of course, somebody may say "yes", but it is a dangerous game to play.

We traveled overseas with our son quite a bit when he was still at an age where he needed a car seat. We always took ours along since I didn't really trust that the seat we would be given by a rental company would be of acceptable quality to us. We were able to buy a sturdy, canvas, zip-up cover designed to fit over the seat so that it could be checked as baggage. It always came through without a scratch! We did this at least three or four times and it worked out fine.

Thanks so much for all the tips :-)

Just came back from England. We used Budget to rent a car from the Heathrow location. No issues to report. I ended up getting a flat and they changed cars without question.

Regarding manual versus automatic. Our rental was 120 pounds, they wanted a 180 pound upcharge for an automatic. I was surprised at the cost so I said no thank you. A stick, is a stick no matter what side it is on.

Thank you John. Did you book directly through their website or something like autoeurope.con?

We booked directly through Budget. I have never used AutoEurope or Europcar even though I have read for years of the good service they both provide. I am a little too skittish I guess. I have always used a brand that I am familiar with in the States. Budget, Hertz, Avis (which now owns Budget). I believe whoever you go with as long as they are a large recognizable name and has the best price, you should be fine.
As a side note, a van on some of the A or B roads would have been the death of me. Yes I know tour buses and lorries pass each other every day w/o incident but I still couldn't help but tense up when a big vehicle came from the opposite direction especially on a turn.

I was in the UK last week and have used Europcar every time, this was the first time they more than aggressively tried to sell me extras and "Insisted" on the insurance though I declined and used my credit card. My vehicle as a Ford compact which got 50 mpg but gas is about $9 a gallon so it evens out compared to here. The van is a good idea if the driver is experienced but th e luggage will probably be a huge issue. My car was $140 for 8 days so it may be cheaper to rent 2 cars.

We returned from the UK 10 days ago and rented a Hertz car through Kemwel (a consolidator). They had one of the lowest rates and were transparent to what charges were included and what was not. For a nine day rental, it was $236.00 plus the 50 GBP charge or a one way drop fee. Since the manual was $200 more than the automatic, we chose manual. My husband thinks the hardest part about driving on the left was the left -side stick shift. He was actually amazed that he never stalled the car when stopping at one of the many roundabouts. When we picked up the car from Hertz, they were not pushy about anything-insurance, upgrade, GPS, etc. We declined insurance and said we brought our own GPS. When we dropped the car off in Sheffield, while the car was very dirty, they didn't care and just checked the mileage. I don't even think he walked around the car to inspect. We expected to walk the 3 blocks to the train station, but the agent told us to keep luggage in the car and he'd drop us off. Regarding gas, we paid for a full tank as we knew we'd be driving about 800 miles (about 70 GBP @ 1.27/L), and put in another 65 GBP enroute.

We've used AutoEurope (Eurocar) and Kemwel (Hertz) previously with no issues.

Hi Karen,
Thanks for the great tips :-)

" Since the manual was $200 more than the automatic, we chose automatic."

Strange, it's usually the other way around!

karen

If you are worried about stalling the car it is usually with the manual transmission rather than the automatic. Did you mean to say manual?

sorry typo. we rented manual

The only reason the car companies want you to prepay the gas is for their benefit, not for your convenience. Unless you coast in on fumes all the gas in the tank is a gift to the rental company. You are charged for a full tank regardless....I always take the time and return it full.