although I hope it's just the beginning, Hertz has lowered car prices to $38 per day for Spring 2023 rentals, at least for small standard shifts. fully cacellable so I hope it's a series of ratcheting downwards reservations.
hoping they get closer to $20...
The prices never hold. The 38 is probably without insurance so add another 10. If you have cc coverage you might want to think about using it. We just rented a mini for the Christmas Market trip. 50 per day with insurance. We were in Germany for the month of July with a rental for 30 days. Price 1350.00 with insurance.
Hi, jjgurley,
Automobile collision damage coverage through Visa/MasterCard is not available in Northern Ireland or the Republic of Ireland. You may be able to find a third party insurer, but if you do, be sure to check the fine print.
Mike (Auchterless)
my cc covers Ireland and NI as I learned from experience. I've been following prices and the Hertz rate is a break from the going $65+. I'd be surprised if I end up there since Hertz is rarely the lowest. I just think it's a good sign of future prices.
Hello from Wisconsin,
All these weird rental prices are due to Covid. Amazing.
car rentals...First step...Book a fully cancelable rental car.
Consider exactly when and where you want the car. If you are renting to get to the west coast, take the bus there and rent in Galway or Limerick. Or where will you end your touring? You could possibly drop the car at the last city you visit and bus/train into Dublin.
Now go shopping.
Start with AutoEurope. You can do their website. It gives you a place to start. it is not the dumbest thing to call them. I have had great luck with extremely knowledgable staff.
Shop Europcar. Once again, you could talk to someone there. And if your current offer is $40 per day, tell them you have a reservation for $37. See if they can beat that.
Never cancel a rental until you have a firm reservation in place with which to replace it. Doing the reverse could leave you empty handed.
Go back to Autoeurope every week or so to see if prices have changed. Once, I landed a Valentine's Day special even though I was going in March.
Good luck,
wayne iNWI
Hi, jjgurley,
I'd be interested in finding out which credit card you have which covers your CDW in Ireland. All of my cards have coverage through Card Benefit Services, and they all state that they will not cover rentals in Irelend, Israel, Jamaica, etc.
Thanks!
Mike (Auchterless)
If you peruse the forum, you'll see many people mentioning premium cards having "all countries" coverage.
Mine happens to be a Costco Visa from Citibank, and the title of the coverage description is Coverage you may have - no matter what car you rent or where. I also have another Citi card and although it once had Ireland coverage, it no longer has any rental insurance coverage whatsoever.
I happen to know the coverage works since I filed a claim in 2016 for an incident and was reimbursed for not only the exaggerated cost of $4500 but the second driver fee as well. That rental cost $179 for two full weeks once the dust settled. In 2019, the cost rose to $350 for two weeks.
Ireland is a place where you legitimately may have to make use of car rental insurance. The roads are not great and many times when you are on backroads, you are quite close to a stone wall and/or have overgrown vegetation hitting your car. Losing a side mirror is certainly not out of the question. A friend of mine had quite a bit of difficulty returning a rental car in Ireland. The rental car company claimed he had caused a ding in the strip of car body below the front bumper. He learned after some research that car rental companies in Ireland were notorious for making claims against renters. As someone that always declines the insurance offered by the car rental companies, my advice would be that Ireland is somewhere you shouldn't screw around with not getting proper coverage.
