Brazil cheapest for car hire, Portugal most expensive

A 15-COUNTRY study of car hire costs by iCarhireinsurance.com reveals that the #Brazil and the United States are the cheapest places to hire a car this summer, while Portugal and Italy are the most expensive. 

Travellers will be paying on average £316 to rent a compact family car (e.g. a VW Golf) for a week this summer (July 30-August 6), across all destinations, although once 'extras' are added at the rental desk – including excess waiver insurance, an extra driver, a satnav and a child's seat – the price almost doubles to £612. Adding a tank of petrol (40 litres) takes the final price to £651.

In Portugal, the most expensive country in the study, it’s possible to pay almost £800 to hire a compact family car plus extras.

Petrol costs vary widely. The cheapest place to fill up is Florida where a full tank of petrol costs only £15, half the price of European petrol prices, which range from £37 in Spain to £56 in the UK.

With the Olympics in Rio this summer, Brazil has been included in the study for the first time, and is the cheapest place to hire a car. It costs £185 on average to hire a car for the week, with extras costing £72 in total compared with an overall average at all the destinations of £335.

Florida is the next most reasonable destination. The average cost of a week’s rental is £222, but the cost of extras is only £168. One of the reasons for this relatively low cost is that the car hire rate in the US often includes full Collision Damage Waiver with zero excess for overseas travellers, meaning customers do not need to buy e excess insurance cover, which is usually the biggest single outlay when a traveller picks up their hire car. But insurance in the US is complicated and depends on the in which cars are hired and the rental company. It is important to check the cover included in bookings.

From the cheapest to the most expensive (for the car hire cost, plus four 'extras' at the rental desk and petrol) the 15 countries (and 17 destinations) stacked up as follows:  

1.   Brazil (pick up from Rio de Janerio Airport) - total cost £257 

2.   USA (picking up from Orlando Airport, Florida) - total cost is £390
3.   Turkey (pick up from Dalaman Airport) - total cost is £515
4.   Germany (pick up from Munich Airport) - total cost is £528
5.   Holland (pick up from Amsterdam Airport) - total cost is £580
6.   Australia (pick up from Sydney Airport) – total cost is £608
7.   Belgium (pick up from Brussels Airport) - total cost is £615
8.   Ireland (pick up from Dublin Airport) - total cost is £686
9.   Greece (pick up in Crete) - total cost is £698
10. Spain (pick up from Barcelona Airport) - total cost is £742
11. Croatia (pick up from Dubrovnik Airport) – total cost is £743
12. France (pick up from Nice Airport) – total cost is £780
13. UK (pick up from London Heathrow) - total cost is £811
14. Italy (pick up from Milan Airport) - total cost is £835
15. Portugal (pick up from Faro Airport) - total cost is £893

Ernesto Suarez, founder and CEO of iCarhireinsurance.com said: ‘Our annual international study shows that the cost of hiring a car varies by over £300 depending on the country you are visiting, but this variation rises to over £600 when the cost of the extras is included. There are some truly shocking additional costs that holiday makers face, when picking up their hire car, making the original low headline price almost irrelevant when the final bill is settled at the desk.

‘People do a lot of research and careful planning for their holiday, but it’s easy to forget to apply the same level of diligence to booking the right rental car.’

www.icarhireinsurance.com


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