I'm looking to hire a car for the easter weekend for some travels. I have family coming over and it's just a lot cheaper to hire a car...and to be honest..I love me a road trip

Being a student I look for student deals. I found some pretty nice deals from Avis!

http://avis.ch/avisonline/ch-gb/avis...rs_Switzerland

Managed to get an Opel Meriva sized car for 348CHF for 4 days over the easter weekend.

I noticed in the confirmation email that it didn't say the young drivers surcharge was included, although it said on the website. My Brother also said to add him as an additional driver. So I phoned up to confirm the booking, add my Brother and make sure they won't charge a young driver surcharge.

Needless to say their English wasn't great. First they said they only have a Ford Fiesta to give me...which is slightly smaller. But then I said a manual Meriva would be fine as well...I'm not some American who can't change gears ya know! Then she said she doesn't know what the total price will be and she will email it to me I got no email after a day.

Needless to say I wasn't impressed with the service I got.

So I phoned up Europcar to see what they could do for me. I got a very nice young lady on the other side who was very helpful. Checked for student discounts and company discounts and everything. But the price came out to 530CHF for an equivalent car

So I explained the price Avis are giving me and that I wasn't happy with Avis' service and that I found this young lady to be very helpful and if they could come close to the Avis price that I will go with them. She said she would love to rent a car to me at that price but she has specific instructions about price and she can't go that low.

Back in the mighty UK, people in retail that I've spoken too (even in the car rental business) say they are willing to take a loss just in order to gain a customer from another company. It makes sense to me. Repeat sale is what it's all about is it not?

I mean if I don't drive the car it's just going to sit there making no money is it not?

You cant be 100% sure that the car wont be rented out - its easter weekend and chances are, lots of people will be looking to do the same thing as you.

Of course I cannot be 100% sure of that. But at the moment all the cars won't be rented.

If she gives it to me now. I pay now. She has a guaranteed sale, one less thing to worry about

'she' gets nothing at all, she's just a bored tiny fish in a huge corporate sea, computer says no. thats it.
she takes home the same daily pay if you take the car or not.

If you have any kind of mileage card (one world ,star alliance etc) that might get you the difference

Unfortunately, it seems like they would rather hold on to the chance of someone wanting to rent the car at the price they've quoted - which is quite high, seeing that its a holiday weekend. Tough luck old bean. Now go crawl back to Avis.

I'm sure when he review comes around and that branch hasn't rented as many cars as they should and her reviewer asks why and she replies 'Avis are cheaper, so everyone goes there' then she will be collecting unemployment benefits

Hire cars are a bit like EasyJet flights- the sooner you book the better the price, and Easter week-ends are always in the top bracket.
Is there a Budget or Alamo in Neuchatel? Good luck. Or will you be hiring from Geneva airport- in which case they are there. You could also try the French sector at Geneva, but beware, they won't have a vignette, so you will have to buy one for CHF40.

I phoned Avis afterwards ready to shout at them for not sending an email.

Only to be told that the price I got in the confirmation is the price they will charge me. My blood pressure increasing at this point and I ask about the additional driver charge. She said they won't charge me extra for the additional driver.....

Free....in Switzerland. I'm sure I will be in for a nasty shock when I actually come to pick the car up though C'est la vie.

I maintain that the Europcar women was nicer. She laughed at my cruddy jokes and lame attempts to charm her into giving me a discount.

you snake you

I think the 350CHF for 4 days in the Meriva is a pretty good price though. Quite a spacious car. Works out at less than 90CHF per day or £60

From talking to them their attitude didn't inspire a lot of confidence in me. Especially the part where she couldn't give me the price

Is it actually a Meriva or is it a Meriva or equivalent?

Swiss car rentals suck.

Most rental cars are obviously rented by business travellers - so on the weekends the demand is typically low. In Germany, all the companies you mentioned therefore try hard to undermatch each other's price. I therefore once got a SLK for 50 EUR for a weekend before with Sixt (! And they offered me a TT or a 5 series as alternatives...). I checked out what the same would cost here and it was more than 500 CHF...

My employer does not like to pay employees for using their cars for business trips - the price per km seems legally fixed in Switzerland and it isn't low. So rental cars are even at inflated Swiss prices a better option (maybe that's why they are so expensive here - the companies know that they have a business case anyway...). Anyhow - the secretary once had to get me a car for a 600km trip to Germany - so 1200 return. She must have spent hours on finding the crappiest car for the lowest price in Zurich... a 1.2 litre Seat. But my lesson is: These guys are probably cheaper than the companies you mentioned: http://www.sunnycars.ch/CH/de/booking.html

They actually used the Europcar office and cars, so I guess it is some sort of "budget branch" of Europcar...

It said Meriva equivalent. When I phoned they tried to say they could only do a Ford Fiesta in automatic. I said Manual transmission is okay so I confirmed that it is a Meriva I will be getting.

Knowing my luck it will be the 1.3 diesel though

Hope you get a good one

No, Sunny Cars was founded in Munich in 1991, and is active in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxemburg, Belgium and the Netherlands. The company does not own its own motor-cars but in each country works with one or two or three other car-rental companies on contract-basis

The company still is based in Munich and still fully owned by its founder.

Keep your hair on Porsch - our posts crossed

Bonne chance. I've always booked on line perso.

Did you tried to book from a website outside of Switzerland? Hubby does that all the time and we always get a better price than doing it in the country.

For exemple, during Christmas we rented a car in the US. We saved up to 200 EURO to rent it from a german website instead of the same one based in the US.

I tend to book through Holiday Autos now.

They usually use Alamo/Europcar in my experience (I've never had anyone else) and they've always been quite a chunk cheaper than going direct.

You write that your family are visiting. Are they coming with Easyjet?
I received a good deal with Europcar at Gatwick via the EasyJet website.

Via EasyJet, from Basel Airport, 4 days, noon to noon

Compact
VW POLO 1.4 or similar
Minimum age: 20
75.46 GBP per day
301.84 GBP Total

Economy
HYUNDAI I10 1.2 or similar
Minimum age: 20
66.34 GBP per day
265.38 GBP Total

(I have booked a Renault Megane at Gatwick for 13 days, fully insured with 2 drivers, for CHF 671.-- )