Travelling South Africa is an adventure that will take more than just a couple of days, especially if you wish to make a road trip out of it. Once you arrive at the starting point of your road trip, you will need to hire a reliable vehicle to get you around. Keen travellers are often surprised to learn that SA car hire companies offer numerous options for long term rentals.
There are a variety of benefits to hiring a car long term to travel South Africa. These include:
- A wide range/variety of vehicles to choose from
- Peace of mind as all vehicles have low mileage and are well maintained
- Access to useful add-ons including roadside assist
- Discounted rental and insurance rates
- 24-hour assistance, 7 days a week
While there are many benefits of hiring a car long term in SA, you do need to prepare yourself for the contract – long term car hire contracts come with a lot of small print!
How to Save on Long Term Car Rentals – Things to be aware of
While you cannot completely avoid the steep cost of hiring a car long term, you can be aware of a few things that you can use to minimise the cost. Here are a few tips for hiring a car long term, without breaking the bank:
- Use a Car Hire Comparison Site for the Best Deals
You could email all the various car rental companies that you are familiar with and request a long-term car rental quotation. You could even troll all of their websites looking for special offers and once again requesting quotes. But all of this will just take up a lot of your valuable time. Car hire companies sometimes offer deals that are buried deep within their website, and the chances are good that you might not even find them.
By using a reputable car hire comparison site, you are guaranteed to find thedeals that you possibly won’t find for yourself at a car hire company. And then, of course, there’s the convenience of using just one comparison site to compare prices and make a secure online booking.
Take Car Hire South Africa,for instance. Here, you can search and compare numerous car hire options and packages for your trip. By simply inserting the pickup and drop off location, dates, and times, along with your age range, the powerful browser will compare deals from all the leading car rental companiessuch as Hertz Car Hire, Avis and Europcar before offering you comparative quotes and the best car rental deals available.
If you haven’t come across any of the cheapest car rental companies before, you can set your mind at ease by doing a little on-site investigation, as there are over 2.1 million customer ratings to read through. Using a car hire comparison site makes long term vehicle hire simple.
- Opt for Car Rental Companies/Offices Away from the Airport
You might have noticed that town-based car hire offices offer lower rental prices on long term car hire than airport branches, and wonder why or how they can do this?
What’s the difference? Straight off – we can tell you that it’s not a money-making scheme orchestrated by the car rental company to prey on your need for convenience. In fact, it is entirely location related.
Location, Location, Location
Airport taxes apply to any business operating out of, and surrounding an airport. On top of this, property and offices in any airport location are considered to be prime property, attracting a higher rental. Airport depots often charge a ‘convenience’ premium to cover these inflated costs.
If you want to save money on a long term car rental, take a taxi or Uber to an off-site car rental branch and pick up your rental car there. You could save hundreds, even thousands of rand.
- Join a Car Rental Loyalty Program
If you travel regularly, join a car rental loyalty program as soon as possible to start earning points.
All leading car rental companies have a loyalty program in place. Take, for example, Hertz Car Hire, which has the Gold Plus Rewards Program. This program allows members to earn points for every car rental they make. These points can then be used as rewards on discounts and benefits which could go towards lowering your long term rental rate or car rental costs in the future.
Of course, the rewards programme is something that needs to be discussed with each rental company that you consider making use of.
Book Affordable Long Term Car Hire to Travel South Africa Online
If you are looking for a way to hire a car long term without incurring unnecessary costs, use the above tips to your advantage. Enjoy long term rentals, reasonable rates and complete peace of mind when searching for, comparing, securely booking and managing your next car hire package with Car Hire South Africa online.
