Car rental in Ireland over Christmas

r3nu4l

I'm going to have to hire a car in Ireland when I come home over Christmas this year. I've hired in Ireland before and found car hire rates to be fairly reasonable.

For example:

To hire a car for 8 days in the next week or so:
Nov 27 - 5 Dec (Pickup and drop off - Dublin Airport): Ford Fiesta or similar - €85.63
Rasonable, right?

Now normally I wouldn't dream of hiring such a titchy car because I'll have my daughter and all of our holiday luggage. I'd normally hire something similar to a Golf/Astra/Focus/Civic over Christmas. However, I've done some checking on hire prices over Christmas and I'm utterly appalled at the quotes! Even the tiny little Fiestas are extortionately expensive!!

For example if I wanted to hire a car for 8 days over Christmas:

Enterprise Rent a Car
Dec 27 - 4 Jan (Pickup and drop off - Dublin Airport): Ford Fiesta or similar - €466.37

Budget
Dec 27 - 4 Jan (Pickup and drop off - Dublin Airport): VW Polo or similar - €456

IrishCarRentals - €373

Hertz - €452


So, I checked Enterprise in the UK for a whole class size bigger (A Focus instead of a little Fiesta) over the same period:

Enterprise Rent a Car
Dec 27 - 4 Jan (Pickup and drop off - Stansted Airport): Ford Focus or similar - £171.85 (~€204)

Can anyone explain the reasons for this? Apart from it being 'Rip-Off Ireland', is there any reason why it should be so expensive?

Also, anyone know of any decent car hire companies who might be cheaper?

coylemj

There are car hire firms galore in all of the airports around London and they hire out lots of cars to business people and tourists all year round. In Ireland, tourists account for a much higher percentage of car hire (than in major cities in the UK) because Dublin being a relatively small city, most visiting business folk get by with taxis or lifts from their Irish hosts.

There is a big drop in tourism in Ireland between September and March so the car hire companies hang on to a relatively small pool of cars but as there is a massive spike in demand over the Christmas period and a limited pool of cars to supply this demand, the rules of supply and demand says that rates go through the roof.

hognef

Also, cars are more expensive in Ireland, and labour costs are higher.

wonski

Try Thrifty, seems like they would give you Focus for less that 450.
And yes, we get robbed during Christmas at every opprtunity - tickets, rental etc...

biko

It's hard to compare like for like between countries. The fleets are different as is the customer base size and at Christmas those companies are making big bucks with everyone coming home.
For the crack I checked with a major UK airport, Heathrow and the Fiesta was less than £150.

mickdw

Ive heard a few people complaining this year that the christmas rates for car hire are crazy compared to other years. Some of these are people that have been renting over christmas for as long as I can remember.

Idbatterim

op i just performed the below search on carhire3000.com and one came up for £293 = €350...

http://www.carhire3000.com/SearchResults.do?dropCity=Dublin&doMinute=30&location=-1&driversAge=25&doHour=11&locationName=Dublin+(All+areas)+&searchType=allareasgeosearch&doFiltering=true&puSameAsDo=on&city=Dublin&puHour=11&dropCountry=Ireland&puDay=27&filterTo=20&dropLocation=-1&doDay=4&countryCode=&dropLocationName=Dublin+(All+areas)+&country=Ireland&filterFrom=0&puMonth=12&puMinute=30&doMonth=1&doYear=2014&puYear=2013&fromLocChoose=true

SuperS54

Try splitting the rental, generally the per day rate for Dec 27 to Dec 31 is much higher than the Jan rates but if you book in one block the high rate applies for the whole rental period. The Jan rate is usually significantly lower.

toyotaavensis

OP there is a lad renting cars in dublin airport called Dan Dooley. Get a quote of him he might be reasonable.

The J Stands for Jay

Have you looked into a location other than the airport?

galwaytt

r3nu4l wrote: »

I'm going to have to hire a car in Ireland when I come home over Christmas this year. I've hired in Ireland before and found car hire rates to be fairly reasonable.

For example:

To hire a car for 8 days in the next week or so:
Nov 27 - 5 Dec (Pickup and drop off - Dublin Airport): Ford Fiesta or similar - €85.63
Rasonable, right?

Now normally I wouldn't dream of hiring such a titchy car because I'll have my daughter and all of our holiday luggage. I'd normally hire something similar to a Golf/Astra/Focus/Civic over Christmas. However, I've done some checking on hire prices over Christmas and I'm utterly appalled at the quotes! Even the tiny little Fiestas are extortionately expensive!!

For example if I wanted to hire a car for 8 days over Christmas:

Enterprise Rent a Car
Dec 27 - 4 Jan (Pickup and drop off - Dublin Airport): Ford Fiesta or similar - €466.37

Budget
Dec 27 - 4 Jan (Pickup and drop off - Dublin Airport): VW Polo or similar - €456

IrishCarRentals - €373

Hertz - €452


So, I checked Enterprise in the UK for a whole class size bigger (A Focus instead of a little Fiesta) over the same period:

Enterprise Rent a Car
Dec 27 - 4 Jan (Pickup and drop off - Stansted Airport): Ford Focus or similar - £171.85 (~€204)

Can anyone explain the reasons for this? Apart from it being 'Rip-Off Ireland', is there any reason why it should be so expensive?

Also, anyone know of any decent car hire companies who might be cheaper?

I'm failing to see a problem here: I've got a quote to rent a Focus for a week in Orlando and it's USD$555. Add in CDW insurance and it comes to USD$751.

Here is cheaper.

Scortho

Op are you coming over from the uk?
If so would it not be cheaper to bring your own car and take the ferry?

r3nu4l

@Idbatterim, thanks, I'll take a look. I'll also take a look at some other recommendations made and I'll be taking an Admin look at what I suspect is spam from another user a few posts above

galwaytt wrote: »

I'm failing to see a problem here: I've got a quote to rent a Focus for a week in Orlando and it's USD$555. Add in CDW insurance and it comes to USD$751.

Here is cheaper.

You're missing the point completely, that's why you don't see the problem.
Ireland has always been fairly cheap for car hire, certainly among the cheapest in Western Europe. I could point you to dozens of countries where it's more expensive than Ireland. That's not the issue.

The problem I have is the massive hike in prices within 4 weeks. From Nov 27 the price is under €200 for 8 days and then from Dec 27 the price is way over €400. That's mad, especially when you consider the crappy little car on offer (apologies to the Fiesta owners).

Cars being more expensive and labour costs being higher have nothing to do with the hike at Christmas at all. If that was the reason the cost would be spread over the year and be negligible.

@coylemj - I chose Stansted airport because the business traffic from there is tiny (I know, I'm always trying to organise my business flights from there and have only managed it twice, I always have to fly from London City, Heathrow or Gatwick). At least 90% of customers travelling from Stansted are tourists and it's still far, far cheaper to hire a car there over the dates above at Christmas than in Ireland. That's as like-for-like as I could get.

Interesting to note though that they might be getting rid of cars after September, perhaps that's it.

Still tragic though. I might have to forego hiring at all and just use public transport so. Unlike most Irish consumers, I won't bend over and take it. I'll deny them the money and suffer some slight discomfort. No big deal doing that.

r3nu4l

Scortho wrote: »

Op are you coming over from the uk?
If so would it not be cheaper to bring your own car and take the ferry?

Unfortunately our flights are already booked. We normally have the use of another car in Ireland but I learned last night that it's no longer available...

ardmacha

At least 90% of customers travelling from Stansted are tourists and it's still far, far cheaper to hire a car there over the dates above at Christmas than in Ireland. That's as like-for-like as I could get.

This isn't really like for like. There is a significant movement of people inbound to Ireland at Xmas, this is much less true of London.

Interesting to note though that they might be getting rid of cars after September, perhaps that's it.

A significant part of the car hire fleet is now for sale. They could rent it for 2 weeks at Xmas, but otherwise have no need of these vehicles until Paddy's day at least.

Still tragic though. I might have to forego hiring at all and just use public transport so. Unlike most Irish consumers, I won't bend over and take it. I'll deny them the money and suffer some slight discomfort. No big deal doing that.

That's up to yourself, demand being so high at that time of year someone else will rent the car.

R.O.R

Supply and demand - nothing more sinister than that.

If you don't book it at that rate, someone else will. There is always a shortage of hire cars in Dublin at Christmas, so they charge what they can get away with, and they do get away with it.

They also need to make up for the fact that there are loads of hire cars hanging around doing nothing at the moment. That's why rentals are so cheap now - over supply and under demand, as they need the fleet size available for Christmas, but won't be taking any additional fleet between now and then.

r3nu4l

Yup, it does appear that someone else will bend over and take it, not me though Fair play to them, if they think the price is reasonable, I'm cool with that. However, as always, the Irish population as a whole let themselves down once again. A simple refusal to pay that price by enough people would see a massive climb down.

In fact, I've done it at Dublin Airport myself in the past when I was quoted a price; I just said, 'No, I won't pay that', two minutes later I was holding the keys at a cost that was 35% down on the original quote. Obviously demand was a lot lower but it goes to show that if everyone just stood up for once and said 'No, try giving me a lower quote', then profits could still be made but not extortionately.

Anan1

r3nu4l wrote: »

The problem I have is the massive hike in prices within 4 weeks. From Nov 27 the price is under €200 for 8 days and then from Dec 27 the price is way over €400. That's mad, especially when you consider the crappy little car on offer (apologies to the Fiesta owners).

Cars being more expensive and labour costs being higher have nothing to do with the hike at Christmas at all. If that was the reason the cost would be spread over the year and be negligible.

Like any other business, they charge what the market will bear. At times like Christmas they can charge top whack and still have all their cars out, whereas this isn't the case at other times. As McGaggs said, I'd try other pickup locations. Depending on where you'll be/how much you need a car while you're here, you could also look into joining GoCar? I think it's around €40/day, but that includes fuel/parking.

Tea 1000

r3nu4l wrote: »

Unfortunately our flights are already booked. We normally have the use of another car in Ireland but I learned last night that it's no longer available...

Try seeing what the cost of changing flights to Belfast is and car hire from there!

galwaytt

r3nu4l wrote: »

You're missing the point completely, that's why you don't see the problem.
Ireland has always been fairly cheap for car hire, certainly among the cheapest in Western Europe. I could point you to dozens of countries where it's more expensive than Ireland. That's not the issue.

The problem I have is the massive hike in prices within 4 weeks.

But I do see the problem: it's not the cars are 'cheap' or 'dear', or that there's a massive increase. You could argue that the rate you have is the 'norm' and the 'cheap' rates you see at other times are actually discounted.

What price the car is when you're not here, or not looking for it, is frankly irrelevant.

davo2001

The bother in law works for Hertz in Dublin airport, i'll give him a shout and see if he can sort something out.

SoulTrader

Having the same issue myself. I picked up a car in Galway in September and dropped it off in Belfast 6 days later. It was full size and the fee was 300euro. This included the international one-way drop off fee; petrol was excluded.

Was looking for a car for 7 days at Christmas, pick up and drop off in Belfast this time, so no one-way fee. For a comparable full size car, the lowest quote I have is 1,100 euro.

Like you though, I will just take public transport. Only really wanted the car because it's handy to get straight to the airport on the way back without waiting around for a bus at 4am. In September, I had quite a bit of driving around to do so it was worth the money then. Wouldn't be worth it now as it's really only needed for the trips to and from the airport.

EDIT: Wait, I take that back. I used Kayak for the search and it was throwing out crazy prices. Tried directly on Budget and can get it for £220. So, maybe it's just RoI then is it?

ninty9er

r3nu4l wrote: »

In fact, I've done it at Dublin Airport myself in the past when I was quoted a price; I just said, 'No, I won't pay that', two minutes later I was holding the keys at a cost that was 35% down on the original quote. Obviously demand was a lot lower but it goes to show that if everyone just stood up for once and said 'No, try giving me a lower quote', then profits could still be made but not extortionately.

Generally that's possible outside of March, August, September and December, but I've been hearing about people walking in places the last few weeks just to hire a car with no booking and being told there's no availability at any cost.