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When did the cost of car hire escalate so much? Seems outta control and way pricier than the last time I hired circa 2.5 years ago. War in Ukraine?
Have you seen the huge increase in the cost of cars and the long lead times to get hold of new ones?
That's the reason hire is so expensive now.
And they sold stock during COVID as no one was renting.
Yes it is.
Will hire a car in Dublin in a couple of months.
4 days rental in 2019 was around £60 and now its £140ish 😳😳😳
Hotel costs are around 50% more as well......
Madness & greed/making up for covid losses?
Does it have to be a car? I've got 4 days sat-tues booked later in the year for £80.
Edit - forgot to say that's 4 days in a van!
Madness & greed/making up for covid losses?
If only there were not a series of global events causing price rises across the board not localised to travel and accomodation that mean all overheads are up ?
The hire companies returned and didn't re-order cars during COVID as there was no business case to because noone was going on holiday or travelling for work. Once holidaying returned etc., It coincided with shortages, so they have acquired fewer cars and couldn't get them at a massive discount like they used to. As a result, there are fewer cars to hire, so prices are higher. They can rent out the fewer cars they have easily rather than having to discount rentals to at least have them out on the road earning a little bit when they had far more that needed to earn a return. Basic supply and demand, certainly not profiteering in my opinion.
It's not "suddenly", it's since you last hired 2.5 years ago - have a guess what happened? 🙂
War in Ukraine?
Yes, main factor anything else is minor by comparison.
Yeh we looked at hiring for a the best part of a week not long ago as our car was off the road waiting for work on it. There wasn't much available, and what there was seemed silly prices for the most basic of small cars. We managed to just about muddle through without the hire in the end with a few lifts from a friend though my son missed school one day as the public bus didn't show.
Some simple economics at play.
Car rental companies used to be a source of volume for the manufacturers when supply outstripped demand. Not profitable volume but it helped cashflow and manufacturing efficiency in the plant and was a way to get potential customers to try your vehicle (kind of a paid prolonged test drive). Demand now outstrips supply, so they don't need to discount their cars to the big rental firms as much (or you and I as retail customers). Hence the rental cars cost more. Hence the cost of a rental has increased.
The war in Ukraine is often blamed for the shortfall in supply, but in reality it is only partly to blame. Other reasons are the impact of covid on the world markets, issues with the global supply chain and general cost inflation. The world has never been as linked in terms of globalisation, or impacted in terms of a perfect storm of issues and it is suffering from a shock.
After 2 years of significant travel disruption, the rental companies (like all of the travel industry) now has some catching up to do in terms of revenue and profit. The cost of air travel increased by 50% YoY in December alone.
The slump in the availablilty of cars and the increased price of cars has coincided with a sudden and unforeseen increase in people travelling again. Not a great combo.
The global market uses the USD as its stable currency of choice. The GBP is worth approximately 30% less than it was 3 years ago when you last hired a car. Brexit is the main driver of this devaluation. Every other currency has suffered inflation, covid etc, but the UK is the only one to have scored the own goal that is Brexit and this has had an impact on the value of the GBP. Therefore before you factor in any of the other issues, your car hire would already be costing 30% more now than it was 3 years ago.
Some might argue that car hire is probably now right-priced and question how it was so cheap for so long. Still hurts though!
Solarider has it nailed.
The knock on of this is also hitting the nearly new market as de-fleeted rentals provided a steady stream of used stock into franchised dealers / auction houses.
That's pushing that demand down into the "not quite nearly new" and so on right down the chain.
At the 4 year old spot where I typically buy a medium mileage, decent spec VW or Ford at £12-15k those cars are currently sitting around £18-22k.
A decent specced large estate with 100k on is hitting £10k at c8-10 years old in many marques.
Have you checked Turo or Getaround? Much prefer these to hire companies if there is something available.
It's a mixed bag. I've just had 7 days hire in a dr6 (think a low rent Audi Q5) for £80 out of Milan Malpensa airport. Cheaper than I've ever had it in the past 10 years.
"Madness & greed/making up for covid losses?"
And pent up demand. Everyone wants to travel now they think it is safe toi do so...