Travellers will be paying on average £317 to rent a compact family car (eg, a VW Golf) for a week this summer (July 27 to August 3, 2019), across all destinations, although once ‘extras’ are added at the rental desk, including super damage waiver (£112), super theft waiver (£18), tyre and windscreen cover (£31), an extra driver (£50), a sat nav (£75) and a child’s seat (£54) and 40 litres of petrol (£49) the price doubles to £706.
In Italy, the most expensive country in the study, drivers pay on average £906 to hire a compact family car with the extras outlined above. This is £364 for the week’s rental, as well as £132 super damage waiver, £61 super theft waiver, £36 tyre and windscreen cover, £56 an extra driver, £108 for a sat nav and £91 for a child’s car seat and £58 for 40 litres of petrol, taking the final price to £906.
To find the best value car rental destinations, iCarhireinsurance.com, a leading provider of stand-alone car hire excess insurance, looked at the cost of a week’s basic hire with six extras payable on arrival (ie. super damage waiver, super theft waiver, tyre and windscreen excess waiver, an additional driver, a child’s car seat and a sat nav) as well as the price of a tank of petrol (40 litres) in 16 countries (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Croatia, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, The Netherlands, UK and the USA). Six rental companies’ costs were compared, Sixt, Hertz, Avis, Budget, Enterprise and Europcar. (Please see the results in the table below).
Petrol costs vary widely across the nations. The cheapest place to fill up is in the USA where a full tank of petrol costs only £26, half the price of European petrol prices, which range from £48 in Spain, to £58 in the UK, Greece and Italy, to around £65 in the Netherlands. Other reasonable petrol destinations include Australia where a full tank costs around £33, Canada £35, and Turkey £37.
The USA is the most reasonable destination overall, closely followed by Turkey. The average cost of a week’s rental in the USA is £231 and the cost of extras including a tank of petrol is only £215. In Turkey, the average cost of a week’s rental is £292 and the cost of extras including a tank of petrol is £229.
The basic car rental rate varies from an average £183 in London (rising to £229 with Avis), to £289 in Croatia (rising to £367 with Avis) and £318 in New Zealand (rising to £630 with Avis) and over £400 in the four destinations of Greece, (£459), Portugal (£428), Canada (£419) and France (£417).
The average cost of the extras, across the survey, is £54 for a child’s car seat (most expensive is £151 with Budget in Milan), £50 for an extra driver (most expensive is £112 in Barcelona with Hertz) and £75 for a sat nav (most expensive is £154 with Budget in Geneva).
