britbronco22

I just went to book a rental for 4 days over Christmas from Edinburgh Airport and the pricing is ridiculous!
£330 PER DAY for a Group D car. That’s at least 4 times the usual rate. Are Hertz trying to recover their lost earnings during lockdown by extorting people over Christmas? They won’t be getting any of my money at that disgusting price.
I expect this price will readjust to something more sensible nearer the time, but is anyone seeing this kind of crazy behaviour at other locations or time periods?
Also tried using Hertz points and it comes up with no availability...
I don’t think I’ve ever come across a company that tries to extort customers with unreasonable pricing more than Hertz. The fact you get different pricing based on which country you appear to be located in, despite receiving the same end product, shows what a racket they run.

AutoSlash

Pricing tends to fluctuate over time. We're guessing it will come down eventually unless Hertz is already oversold, in which case, the price is high for a reason. Care to share what dates you are searching? Someone may be able to help find a better deal.

britbronco22

Dec 24th - Dec 28th.

I have rented many times at EDI, usually with the Amex CDP for 20% off, but pricing is normally more like £30-£40 per day. Maybe I’ve used points to get down to that rate, but it’s not an option currently, at least on the website.

I think there’s no chance in hell they have lots of bookings at this point. Has this kind of extortionate pricing been noted elsewhere?

spanishflea

That’s fairly normal for Christmas in the U.K. To get a good rate over the Christmas week you generally need to book in January/February before the crazy rates get locked in.

Dave Noble

At those prices, looks like a perfect time to use points. Can halve the cash cost by using 1200 points for 2 x weekend days - I just did a dummy rental for both pre-paid and non-prepaid rates (Group D Skoda Octavia or similar ) and it offered a points option ( pickup and return times set to 11am ) ; group F was not available on points

If you would be happy with a Volvo XC60 ( Group L6 ) , I can let you know how to legitimately get that for GBP666 , so about GBP166 per day

ferg01

Pricing at EDI can routinely be very very high. I've always wondered how anyone actually rents at these rates...

britbronco22

I rented from EDI 23/12-27/12 (4 day rental) in 2018, I made the booking on the 22/9/18 and paid £180 TOTAL, for Group D (Skoda Octavia).
I did use my corporate CDP to bring the price down, but from recollection it was around £400 for the 4 days without CDP.
I've never seen pricing like this before at EDI. I normally do 1-2 rentals a year from EDI for 4 days, and I don't think I've ever paid more than £200 except when I rented the Jaguar F Pace from the British Collection. That was 4 days last summer, and still it was only £220 with Amex CDP.

britbronco22

Thanks for taking a look Dave, but at that price I would rather take public transport while we are up there. The fact that a superior group (L6) is coming up significantly cheaper than group D, shows what a farce the Hertz pricing is. Hopefully it will come down to something more sensible over the next couple of months. I can't see many people renting with Hertz at these prices.

ReinaDeLaSelva

Si senores I often rent at EDI tambien. ~5 to 8 times a year. Usually I find good value via Hertz but recently as you say, not. Price gouging. Perhaps related to US Hertz BK although I know, Hertz GB/EU is "independent"? Using GR points has been extremely hard also in the past year.

For Hertz I think this problem is relatively new and not specific to EDI. Hertz showed the same non-offers at LHR when I was there two weeks ago and so I did not rent from them.

If you do not absolutely require Hertz then por favor try AA.COM and use the tab at the bottom of the home page to select the "35% off Budget/AVIS." I check now and find prices about ~50% cheaper. Por ejemplo small SUV for 220DG so aproximente ~170GBP for those exact four days 24/12-28/12. Also you will earn some AA AAdvantage, if useful to you.

Muchachos I often find the AA.COM car rental rate is a good one from EU/EEA airports. Last week I rented for one week from TIA for 190DG and this rental bonus is 2500 AA millas. Also unlike most airline tickets, such reservation can be cxld without charge until rental time, so meantime you can continue to wait on Hertz if it pleases you.

I am a practical car renter and do not care about Volvo or Nissan Cashcow so if specific model is important then do not listen to me LOL!

AutoSlash

Hertz's pricing is quite high right now, but we're seeing some excellent deals with Avis right now.

lewis_saint

I came here as looking for a 6-day rental from LHR in late December 2020 and also seeing crazy rates of 260 GBP/day for class A. By comparison, Enterprise's rates from LHR are far more favorable.

As a follow-up, Hertz's weekly rates at the same time are more favorable:

- 1 Week at 449.94 GBP (before tax)
- 6 Days at 1,306.26 total GBP (before tax)

ReinaDeLaSelva

I am checking Hertz again at both LHR and EDI and now for rental in late December in fact starting any day from Dec 22nd and later I am seeing this error message: "We're sorry, there are not any vehicles available for this request. [DE34]." This error occurs also at GLA and BHX and the notorious MAN location for same time periods.

But if I search GLA for mid-October, I see (very expensive) quotes.... Hertz is collapsing now it seems.

rcspeirs

"We're sorry, there are not any vehicles available for this request. [DE34]."
That's routine. The major rental companies in the UK often sell out of inventory over Christmas.

aztimm

Here are the prices I'm finding for Hertz rentals at EDI, Dec 24-28 (3pm pickup and dropoff). Prices are in GBP per day, and do not include taxes/fees.

Compact automatic: 38.02
Compact manual: 29.12
Intermediate automatic: 40.14
Compact wagon manual: 275
Premium wagon automatic: 60.05
Standard Cargo van manual: 46.47

ReinaDeLaSelva

Senor aztimm, which booking site do you use?

At this moment I do not see these rates either at Hertz.com/US or UK. I tried one minute ago for these exact dates and times and I see only code 34 above. Carrentals.com does not show any Hertz inventory but it has now even cheaper AVIS rates down to 127DG for small car. But, if I try using Citi TYP via their booking portal, then I can see such rates and availability including now at LHR also for this period. Very strange unless I have been totally "segmented out" of Hertz market lol!