Christmas Holiday Car Hire Charges go seasonally higher

Last Thursday (15th December) The Irish Independent had an article under their Consumer Guide - Taking the sting out of car rentals - Motor hire firms jack up prices over Christmas, but you can beat the system.

According to the article on the 6th December this year, The Irish Independent carried out some pricing checks online for car hire from Dublin Airport. They researched Avis, Hertz, Thrifty, Enterprise, Europcar and Budget Car Hire.

The rental periods they looked at were one week rentals on the periods December 9-16, December 16-23 and December 23-30.

They looked at the cheapest basic cars - Ford Ka, Fiat 500, VW Up, Citroen C1 and Toyota Aygo.  So as we are approaching the time when there would be lots of customers, what did they find out? €114 for December 9-16,€320 for December 16-23 and €395 for December 23rd to 30th. This works out as an average of 250 percentage increase between the first and third weeks, so quite a Christmas bonus for the car hire companies.

Mind you flights generally cost more around Christmas and school holidays and other major holidays and car hire charges have been known to get more expensive at seasonal times for years. Try renting a car from Dublin Airport in mid January - prices are very, very competitive and a great choice, but that is after the majority of visitors have gone.

Collision damage waiver (CDW) insurance policies:

The article also talked about  collision damage waiver (CDW) insurance policies. This is an area the car hire company will normally throughout the year earn additional revenue. The Irish Independent said " Buy a collision damage waiver (CDW) insurance policy from a separate provider rather than from the car hire firm. These policies will cover you if you cause any minor damage to a rental car, but car hire firms will charge you an arm and a leg. Instead, you can buy a separate policy from AIG, AXA and CarHireExcess.com for around €60 a year, or else up to €3 a day."  If you are an Irish customer find out more about CarHireExcess here and a customer from the UK here

I read the article in the Irish Independent which apparently is the only Irish daily newspaper that you can buy in Britain. If you want to read the article in full you can find it online here. 

Enjoy your Christmas and New Year break