Tag: Rental Cars

Survey shows that Australians look for travel bargains over locations

It’s not surprising that Australian travellers look for good deals before deciding on the location they want to travel to. When you live in a country as beautiful as OZ, who cares where you go as long as it’s cheap!

A study, conducted by Internet travel company Travelzoo found that 56 per cent of Australian travellers book their holidays based purely on the best available travel deals, and not on locations.

71 percent of those surveyed also claimed that they look for package deals rather than one off bargains as you can get more for your money and travel further afield. Also, out of the 1,786 Travelzoo subscribers surveyed, 55% stated that they would happily book a vacation solely based on the fact that it was too good to miss.

This being the case, it would seem perfectly reasonable for all Australian travellers to check out Transfercar’s relocation cars and campervans, and base their travel destinations on what vehicles are available and where they are going!

Like I said…it’s Australia…who cares where you end up, it’s all pretty spectacular anyway!

Hertz acquires Ace, joins with Apollo

In a move signaling its expansion into the Australian and New Zealand market, Hertz today announced the acquisition of budget car rental company Ace Rental Cars and an alliance with Apollo Motorhome Holidays.

At a press conference in Sydney, visiting Hertz International president Michel Taride said the two ventures were steps in Hertz’s plans to diversify the company’s brand and product offerings.

Read the full article courtesy of Travel Blackboard Australia

Tips and tricks on how to save fuel while driving

Often AA has some great little articles about travelling NZ that relocation drivers and budget conscious travellers can benefit from.  Here’s one of those articles I think may be well worth reading.

I have given you the main points but read the full article to see why they recommend these strategies.

Continue reading Tips and tricks on how to save fuel while driving

How to request your free standby relocation car or campervan with Transfercar

For all our new or prospective relocation drivers, here’s a little bit of info on how to request a standby car or campervan on transfercar .co.nz and transfercar.com.au.

Step 1: Register as a driver.

  • Remember to sign up for email alerts for specific routes you are looking for or just to hear what new vehicles are being listed daily.

Step 2: Log in to transfercar.com.au or transfercar.co.nz and look for the relocation car or campervan that suits your destination.

  • Be aware that the dates specified are the earliest and latest pick up and drop off dates  and you are given a certain amount of days between these dates to drive the vehicles.

Continue reading How to request your free standby relocation car or campervan with Transfercar

How to get a relocation vehicle?

My name is Brian and I am one of the founders of Transfercar. I have written this article series to help people who are thinking of relocating a car, camper van or motorhome for the first time via Transfercar.

How to get a relocation vehicle – preparation and planning

transfercar-frontpageThe first thing is to find a relocation car at www.transfercar.co.nz that suits your travel requirements. The table of available relocation cars on the front pages gives a good overview of what is available. Pay attention to the free extras column that tells you what is included in the relocation deal. The more things included the better for you as a relocation driver. Normally the rental car companies include ferry and standard insurance with the relocation car. From time to time the rental companies also add petrol vouchers or a free tank of petrol. Often this applies to urgent relocations. The available column tells you the earliest pick-up date and latest drop off date. It does not mean you can have the vehicle during the whole period. The number of days you can have the car for free is specified in the details that can be viewed by clicking anywhere on the row of the relocation you are interested it. Most rental car companies allow between 4-7 days for a relocation between Christchurch and Auckland.

To request a relocation car click the Drive it free!-button. Your request is send directly to the rental car company and they will accept or reject your request within 12-48 hours. Sometimes they receive several requests for the same relocation. So if your request is not accepted, don’t despair – just request another one! Until you get accepted the whole booking is a ‘blind process’. You will not be told who the rental car company behind the relocation is until you have been accepted by the rental company.

I requested the motorhome approximately 7 days prior to the date we preferred to pick it up. Our request was accepted within 12 hours and we received a confirmation email from Transfercar and later on we also got an email from the rental car company – In this case it was Jucy Rentals. I called up Jucy to organize the exact pick-up time and drop-time. The rental car company also schedule the ferry crossing for us. In our case Jucy covered the cost of the ferry for the motorhome and we had to pay for passengers – $50 per person when booking through the rental car company (otherwise it is $58 with Interislander)

After having organized the relocation, we booked flight tickets with Jetstar – $39 (without luggage) and $49 (20k allowance) per person. Alternatively try Grabaseat or virginblue – you just gotta love love the competition 🙂

Rental Road Rage

It happens to the best of us. Everybody has had at some stage in their life a mild or-in my case- a severe case of road rage overcoming them. Especially in summertime. People are hot and bothered in summertime. Things get untidy when people are hot and bothered.

And I admit- I’m guilty as hell. I bet you too. In the silence of your car- or perhaps out loud with lots of certain ‘finger activity’ and flickering headlights if you’re really over it- abusing our rental-car-road-users-from- abroad. It happens in every country, because as soon as humans go on holiday, they give their brains a brake a bit too literally.

So the rental car road users are the ones that do it. They are the ones that push all your wrong buttons and they are the ones that will make you run late for that career defining presentation. Not the local touring its own country-because he knows. And the fact that you left home 10 minutes too late has got nothing to do with it either- it’s THEM.

And please don’t get me wrong- all countries love their visitors and tourists dearly. They really do. But when you’re the local, they are the ones on holiday and they are the ones in a happy-people-relaxed-mode. We’re not. We’re already latent shitty when we walk out the door in the morning. Because the sun is shining and we’re going to be locked up in that office all day. We’re in the stressed-out-running-too-late-for-the-bloody-meeting-mode. And we all know that this mode does not mix well with a rental-road-user-from-abroad sitting in front of you doing 30.

So for the sake of national bloodpressure, the quality of the tourist’s holiday and the overall sanity in any country, signs will need to go up in the international arrival halls of airports.

And this is what they will read:

  1. Thou shall not drive 20 k’s per hour where you’re allowed 80.
  2. Thou shall not be indecisive and fiddle around on the road.
  3. Thou shall not suddenly stop in the middle of the road because you have seen a Kodak moment.
  4. Thou shall not drive painfully slow on curvy roads to then Nascar race the straights so you can’t be overtaken.
  5. Thou shall not attempt to parallel park your rental vehicle fifteen times in a row when it is painfully obvious to the ten waiting teeth-grinding other drivers it ‘ain’t gonna fit’.
  6. Thou shall not park your rental vehicle on the wrong side of the road or, whilst visiting cities, park on designated permit parkings.
  7. Thou shall not randomly camp overnight in your rental vehicle on the side of the road, beaches or my driveway for that matter.
  8. Thou shall not multitask in your rental vehicle whilst driving-you can’t drive, read a map, sing along with the radio and take photos at the same time.
  9. Thou SHALL pull over for faster road users to overtake you.
  10. Thou SHALL drive on the correct side of the road. Your campervan might seem huge to you, but they did take the size of average cars in account when they made the road so there’s no need to drive in the middle of it.

Follow these 10 commandments while renting a vehicle on holiday and the world will be a better place.