BAA Strike Update 17/08/2010: BAA has made an improved pay offer to members of the Unite union who were threatening to strike over the August Bank Holiday weekend. The strike threat has now been lifted for the time being and BAA staff will vote on the new deal. The union is backing the new deal and urging its members to accept it.

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Airline passengers have been hit hard by disruptions this year. First it was unusually large amounts of winter snow, then it was volcanic ash from Iceland. Now, there’s the threat of a BAA strike that could close down several airports over the August bank holiday weekend (click here for the latest news from BAA).

The knock-on effect for car hire companies has been considerable – and a fair number of travellers have found themselves out of pocket due to cancellation fees levied on them when they didn’t (couldn’t) turn up for their pre-paid car hire bookings as a result of cancelled flights.

Car hire firm Sixt has decided that this is a little bit unfair and has announced that:

SIXT have decided to waive cancellation fees on pre-paid rentals, for any customer booking directly with SIXT who may be affected by the strike.

Sixt says:

“we’ve grown tired of events and circumstances affecting travellers who choose to book a hire car with Sixt and are not wanting to punish customers for circumstances that are out of their control.”

Potential car hire customers should read this announcement carefully, however. The cancellation fee waiver only applies to customers who have booked pre-paid rentals directly with Sixt – not customers who booked through a broker or who didn’t choose to pre-pay.

Despite this, it’s a welcome move from Sixt – hopefully other car rental companies will follow suit.

Are you a regular overseas car hire customer? Perhaps you have an office or a holiday home that you visit regularly, hiring a car from the same location each time?

If so, Budget has an offer that might interest you. Budget’s Go Overseas! club is aimed at regular overseas car hire customers and offers you a number of benefits. The best of these is one day’s FREE car hire for every five you pay for.

You’ll also get access to Budget’s most competitive rates, plus you’ll receive a monthly newsletter with details of exclusive Go Overseas! deals and offers. Interested? Click on the link below to learn more and then look for the “Holiday Home Car Rental” link:

Anyone travelling to the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico for a holiday can now arrange their car hire through Sixt, thanks to the company’s recently-opened office in the island’s capital, San Juan.

The branch provides a free shuttle bus service to and from the nearby interational airport and can also arrange to pickup and dropoff cars at various other points around the city. A wide range of cars and SUVs are available and Sixt’s franchise partner in Puerto Rico, Quality Car Rental, has more than 20 years experience of providing car hire in Puerto Rico.

CLICK HERE to get a Sixt car hire quote for Puerto Rico

Holiday car hire often means driving around in a new-but-dull little runabout. No disrespect to such cars – they are practical, easy to drive and cheap to rent – but sexy, they aren’t.

Of course, you can usually choose a slightly large model – a fleet favourite like a Ford Mondeo, VW Passat or perhaps a C-class Mercedes, for example.

But what if you want something really special and have a bit of money to blow? What if you are visiting places like Malaga and Marbella, where bling is king, and you don’t want to look like you’ve just escaped from the M25?

Sixt may have the answer. The German car hire giant is now offering Porsches for hire at its Marbella and Malaga branches. Drivers can choose between the pure sportiness of the Porsche 911 and the high-speed-luxury-for-4 appeal of the new Porsche Panamera.

Prices start from just £140 per day for a 911 and £330 per day for the Panamera (based on a two-week rental). The Porsches are available for both short and long-term hire.

Visit Sixt’s website for an instant quote:

A lot of people can quite honestly say that they would love to own and drive a more environmentally-friendly car – but they simply can’t afford to change their current car. I know that’s true for me.

However, one solution for light car users who live in towns and cities is not to own a car at all – something I’m quite keen on! Car hire companies are making this easier and easier for ordinary mortals by increasingly offering free delivery and collection services and the like.

Several car hire companies are now also offering special low-emission ranges of rental cars. Two such companies are Hertz (with its Green Collection) and Avis (with its Avis Eco Collection). Both offer genuinely low emission cars – such as the Toyota Prius, VW Golf Bluemotion and the Seat Ibiza Ecomotive – available for hire – at very ordinary rates.

To learn more about either companies’ offerings, click on the banners below:

Following neatly on from my last post about Sixt’s deployment of electric hire cars in London, Renault has announced that it has received an order from Europcar for 500 electric cars from its forthcoming Z.E. (Zero Emissions) range of electric cars.

A prototype of the Renault Fluence Zero Emission electric car

The cars are due for delivery from the third quarter of 2011 and will be available for hire in cities across Europe – the primary market for electric cars at present. Renault’s Zero Emission (Z.E.) range will initially be made up of three models:

• Fluence Z.E. (pictured above) – a four-door saloon
• Twizy Z.E. – a small, city car
• Kangoo Z.E. – an electric version of Renault’s popular Kangoo small van

Car hire company Sixt will be offering electric car rental in London, stating from the 4th March, 2010. Sixt’s Fulham branch will be offering the Citroen C1 Ev’ie for hire – an all-electric version of the popular C1 supermini.

The C1 Ev’ie apparently has a range of up to 75 miles, a top speed of 60mph and can be charged for as little as 95p in electricity costs. Drivers of electric cars in London gain access to a number of benefits, including:

• Exemption from the London Congestion Charge
• Designated parking spaces and recharging spots

The electric C1 will be on display at Sixt’s Fulham branch and will be available for rent from 4th March.

Click here to visit Sixt’s website.

If you would like to try an electric car and live in or near London, then help may be at hand. GoGo Electric Car Rentals is based in Brixton and has a fleet of Mega City electric cars that are available for daily rental.

Benefits of electric car use in London include free parking, exemption from the congestion charge and even free parking at specified points in the City of Westminster, according to GoGo Electric Car Rentals. To find out more, visit GoGo’s website or give them a call on 0845 299 7260.

One of the most common problems that car rental firms and their customers experience is disputes over damage.

The rental firm claims – often after the car has been returned – that certain damage has been caused by the renter. The renter disputes this but is unable to provide evidence to back his or her claim up – apart from the notes from the walkaround inspection at the beginning and end of each rental.

The problem with a walkaround inspection is that it is not always very accurate or comprehensive. The last two times I hired a car (from a major international car rental firm), the pickup walkaround inspections were flawed:

• One the first occasion, the car I was collecting was black and was still wet from being washed after its last rental. On top of this, it was dark outside. You try finding minor paintwork damage or small dents on a wet, black car in the dark. I just had to take a chance that all was okay.
• On the second occasion, the agent from the rental company did not notice that both of the car’s wing mirrors had been badly scraped and then touched up (also badly!) by a previous customer. I pointed this out and it was recorded – but otherwise I might have been held responsible.

Hertz’s solution is to start taking high resolution ‘before and after’ photographs of each car. The scheme has been trialled for the last month at a US car rental location and Hertz is positive about the impact it has had.

Hertz hopes that the scheme will help reduce customer disputes and lower its repair bills, which run to $170m a year at present.

I can see the benefits of this system. Hertz will be able to produce before and after photos to prove that a car was damaged during the rental period. However, in the cases I mentioned above, photographs would only really have helped in the second instance. A wet car photographed in the dark will still not show up damage like a dry one in daylight.

Has anyone had any experience of this system in practice, yet? If so, leave a comment below, I’d be very interested to know more about how it works in reality.

Car rental firm Sixt has just opened two new car hire offices in Brussels South station and Maastricht Central station.

This follows the highly successful opening of a rental office directly opposite Amsterdam Central Station last year. It seems that long-distance railway travellers want to hire cars at their destinations! According to Sixt’s Thomas Walters, the “opening of the Sixt branch at Amsterdam Central Station proved to be an enormous success”.

Sixt expects this trend to continue, especially as Brussels South is one of the key international interchanges for rail travel in Europe.

Click here to visit Sixt’s website for a quote or to book a hire car.