Driving in New Zealand

I’ve had many questions from our Transfercar drivers about what licence they need to drive our vehicles. Here is aroad great article about New Zealand driving regulations that will answer many of your queries.

International Driving Licences and Permits

You can legally drive in New Zealand for up to 12 months if you have either a current driver’s licence from your home country or an International Driving Permit (IDP). After 12 months you are required to convert to a New Zealand licence. This applies to each visit to New Zealand.

In New Zealand all drivers, including visitors from other countries, must carry their licence or permit at all times when driving. You will only be able to drive the same types of vehicles you are licensed to drive in your home country. The common legal age to rent a car in New Zealand is 21 years.

Read more at newzealand.com

Transfercar’s itinerary for the ‘Big Day Out’ New Zealand & Australia! January 2011

The Big Day Out

It’s the event of the year for many hard core party goers! People come from all over the world to witness a gathering of extraordinary musicians and some of the hottest and heaviest artists in the world today.

Melbourne, Goldcoast and Sydney are all sold out with Sydney planning its second event. Auckland tickets won’t last long as many will be lining up to see the 34 bands banging out their tunes on the multiple stages within the venue.

For all our Transfercar drivers, keep an eye out for our free relocation cars and campervans heading to event locations around this time!

Transfercar’s suggested itinerary:

  • Request a relocation vehicle in advance for both journeys there and back if you can
  • Have a 5 day holiday cruising in a free car or campervan as you travel to and from the “Big Day Out” near you
  • Arrive at destination – Drop off vehicle
  • Taxi to the event – Taxi to your hotel (SLEEP)
  • Take your new transfercar home/or fly/bus/train if you are feeling a bit jaded!!

Links to the full lineup:

Auckland Fri Jan 21 (MT SMART STADIUM Maurice Rd Penrose. Gates open 11am) Lineup

Gold Coast Sun Jan 23 (GOLD COAST PARKLANDS Smith St Southport. Gates open 11am) Lineup

Sydney Wed Jan 26 & Thu Jan 27 (SYDNEY SHOWGROUND Showground Rd Sydney Olympic Park. Gates open 11am. Event closes midnight) Lineup

Melbourne Sun Jan 30 (MELBOURNE FLEMINGTON RACECOURSE Epsom Rd, Flemington, Melbourne. Gates Open 10.30am) Lineup

Adelaide Fri Feb 4 (ADELAIDE SHOWGROUND Rose Tce Wayville, Adelaide. Gates Open 11am) Lineup

Perth Sun Feb 6 (PERTH CLAREMONT SHOWGROUND Graylands Rd Claremont, Perth. Gates Open 11am) Lineup

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 🙂

Vote for Transfercar on Facebook

Transfercar needs your support!

Install the app at http://apps.facebook.com/kick-start/ and vote for Transfercar at the “Kick-start.

[network:StartUP] is a global community designed to assist online Start-UPs. Every week they will be sending their entire group of thousands of visitors to one lucky Start-UP (Transfercar) and provide a major traffic spike and hopefully a lot of new users.

You can help Transfercar by voting for them at Start-UP with on their Kick-Start my Start-UP Facebook App.

So install the app at http://apps.facebook.com/kick-start/ and vote for Transfercar now!

And the winners are…

Winners of the petrol vouchers announced
Winners of the petrol vouchers announced

We are happy to announce the winners of the “Wanna win free petrol?” -competition in the December issue of Transfercar’s email newsletter.

For those of you who missed it, this was the competition:

Wanna win free petrol?
Well, you can! What do you have to do to win? Nothing much really, just refer as many colleagues, friends and relatives to us as you can. That’s it!
We will draw 2 winners of $150 petrol vouchers each. To enter the competition just get the people you refer to enter  your username in the reference code on the registration page.
The more new registrations with your username on it, the bigger the chance you have to win!

We have had a great response with almost 650 new users signed up through the referral, so welcome on board to all of you!

..and the two winners of a $150 petrol voucher each are:

Matthew Rice
Queensland
Australia

and

Andrea Wilke
Berlin
Germany

We congratulate you both and thank you for your effort! The vouchers have been issued and sent out to you.

For all of you who missed out this time there will be some more competitions with even bigger prizes in the future. Hopefully we will see some Kiwi’s amongs the winners then as well! 🙂