Car hire is a useful extra on any skiing holiday, enabling you to visit different areas and explore the slopes away from where you are staying. However, the cost can add up - especially for a whole week.

To help you get the most from your winter skiing trip, Avis are currently running a special offer providing a 10% discount on regular ski location prices for all customers who book a week’s car rental between now and the 13th March, 2009.

The offer applies to all ski locations with Avis branches - in the USA and Europe. To check availability at your destination, click here.

Remember, this offer only applies to ski locations and a full week’s car hire must be booked.

Older drivers - anyone over 65 or so - often get a raw deal when it comes to car rentals.

Just as with younger drivers, companies have various restrictions in place for older drivers.

Some might have a blanket ban from a certain age - anything between 65 and 80 - while some might impose a surcharge, as with younger drivers.

While I can understand that some (much) older drivers may have health or fitness problems that impact on the risk of them being involved in an accident, I do think that the current system of arbitrary age limits is unfairly harsh.

I’m obviously not the only person who feels this way, as illustrated by this story from Ireland. The driver concerned, who was over 70, was asked to pay a €25 per day surcharge on his car rental at Dublin Airport and warned that next time around, when he would be over 75, he would be banned from hiring a car altogether.

Unhappy with this arbitrary approach, he complained to both the rental company and then to Equality Authority, Ireland’s anti-discrimination body. The result was that the car hire company concerned has dropped its blanket ban on drivers over 75, scrapped the daily surcharge for drivers over 70 and introduced an individual safety assessment for older drivers instead.

Result. Presumably this will count as case law so other car rental companies in Ireland will be motivated to follow suit.

Will it happen in the UK? Not unless people start complaining like Brother White did.

When booking a hire car for collection at an airport, you will often be required to provide your flight number. Make sure you provide it, or it could cost you dearly - as this story in the Birmingham Mail illustrates.

In this case, the customer’s flight was delayed, resulting in the car hire company’s airport office being closed for the night when she arrived. She then had to take a taxi to her hotel and another taxi to return to the airport the following day and collect her hire car - hardly a dream start to a holiday.

However, this whole situation could have been avoided had the customer provided her flight number. The hire car was booked through Holiday Autos, whose spokesman told the Birmingham Mail that “Had the flight details been added, the car rental desk would have waited for the customers’ arrival.”

As no flight details had been provided (it’s optional, not compulsory), Holiday Autos had simply found a the cheapest supplier that was open at the times specified by the customer.

Although it must have been a frustrating experience, you can’t really criticse Holiday Autos - they ask for flight details and just take your times on trust if you don’t provide them. Their whole business model is based on providing the cheapest quote - and customers would soon complain if they were paying extra for 24-hour availability when they hadn’t asked for it.

The lesson here is always provide your flight details when booking airport car hire - it really does pay.

Online car hire broker Holiday Autos is currently offering an impressive 10% discount on all California and Florida car rental bookings made before the 7th December, 2008.

There is no limit on the duration of these rentals but you must be going to pick-up the car between the 1st November 2008 and the 31st March 2009.

California and Florida are two of the most popular areas of the USA for visitors from abroad. Their attractions include Miami’s glamorous beaches and nightlife, Orlando’s Disney World and the home of the stars, Los Angeles.

Whatever takes your fancy, car hire in Florida starts from just £12 per day and car rentals in California are available from only £13 per day.

Click on the banner below to get a USA car hire quote from Holiday Autos:

If you are planning on hiring a car in Europe this autumn, you might want to consider getting a quote from Alamo. That’s because they are offering a free upgrades for European car rentals in the following countries:

• UK
• France
• Spain
• Portugal
• Greece
• Italy
• Ireland
• Netherlands

Here’s how it works:

1. You book either an intermediate, compact or economy car
2. You pay for the class below - compact, economy or mini

That’s it. The offer is valid for any length of rental but I’m not sure how long it will last, so it might be a good idea to book early if you’re interested. Click on the banner below to get started:

Arrive at most airports car rental offices worldwide, and you would be forgiven for feeling a certain sense of deja vu. Rather like MacDonalds, most major car rental companies make all of their branches look pretty similar.

Arrive at Avis‘ Moorea Airport and Bora Bora offices, however, and you will be pleasantly surprised with both the decor and the unusual choice of vehicles. These locations in French Polynesia (Tahiti is the main island) offer something that is guaranteed to add the finishing touch to your dream holiday and bring a smile to your face.

Local-style wooden panelling adorns the rental office counter and open top beach buggies an on offer to fun-seeking drivers. Don’t worry - regular cars are available too from all five of Avis’ French Polynesian locations:

• Bora Bora
• Papeete
• Moorea
• Huahine
• Raiatea

You can book cars anywhere with Avis by clicking on the link below:

Hiring a car abroad is pretty much the same as doing it in when you’re at home. Except it isn’t quite.

Different language.

(Slightly) Different rules of the road.

Vehicles with the steering wheel on the opposite side to normal.

And so on…

Consumer organisation Which? have recognised that there can be a few pitfalls when hiring a car abroad and published this useful guide to hiring a car abroad.

While this is a sensible and helpful guide, I would point out that you shouldn’t exaggerate the potential problems. Most of them apply when you are at home, too and it really is just a case of being careful and checking everything that needs checking. The only things that can make it harder abroad are language difficulties and unfamiliar geographic surroundings.

Don’t let the fear of problems put you off renting, however. Like so many things, the vast majority of people do it without any problems whatsoever, but you only hear about the tiny minority of people who did have problems.

Car rental giant Hertz has just opened a new car hire branch at Dubai Airport. The branch is in Terminal 3 of Dubai’s International Airport and is part of Hertz’s UAE expansion plans.

The Hertz branch has been opened to meet the demands of Dubai’s growing number of visitors and will provide 24/7 car hire facilities. Hertz has also recently opened a branch in the Radisson SAS Dubai Marina hotel and has plans to offer a branch in the town of Al Ain.

Other Hertz car hire branches in the United Arab Emirates include Abu Dhabi, Fujairah, Ras Al Khaimah and Sharjah.

One of the oldest and best-known names in car hire, Hertz, turns 90 this year.

To mark the occasion, it is giving away £90 of free fuel every day this week - from the 20th October to the 26th October.

All you have to do is enter the promotional code 125171 when you book a car online with Hertz, and you will automatically be entered into the competition.

Stopping at tolls is a hassle most of us simply accept - especially when we are abroad and can’t have an automated pass for the toll system in the country we’re visiting.

National Car Rental has decided that isn’t good enough for its customers. According to Greg Stubblefield, President of National Car Rental, “our customers want to get on the road and to their destination quickly and safely. We know from listening to our customers that they don’t like fumbling for loose change and waiting in line at toll booths.”

To address this issue, National has introduced the Toll Pass system in the USA. Initially being piloted at Newark Liberty International Airport, Toll Pass uses the established E-ZPass automated toll payment system. Customers will pay an additional fee to use Toll Pass and will then be billed for all the tolls they incur after the car rental has been completed.

The scheme will shortly be expanded to National’s sister company Alamo and will be expanded to other states including Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia over the coming months.