Groupon Car Hire con, do not buy

[wayneg]

Received email this morning from Groupon offering £199 off car hire for £59 cost with Affordable Car Hire.

Just looked into the offer in more detail.
Dummy booking for 2 weeks in March, full size car with Dollar.

Prepay £59
Rental £514
Less £199
Total £374

I then priced up without going thru the Groupon Link for a regular booking.
Same car using code 020 on their homepage and cost would be £352

I finally tried the same rental via Quidco using the same discount code and it was the lowest quote at £338 plus possible 13% cashback = £294 (although cashback could be rejected for using a discount code its still the lowest quote)

Personally I wouldn't buy any of the above as the same car can be bought elsewhere for around £250, I just wanted to warn people that the Groupon deal is not a deal.

 

[Samaya]

Thanks for the heads-up Wayne, we've been checking prices for our next trip in March, we're still toying with the travel industry rate which Embraer posted in June last year.

Since June the price in sterling has not really changed but as you pay on arrival the dollar amount has increased due to it weakened against the pound.

Last June an Intermediate SUV for a weeks rental would cost £111.05 (approx. $166.74) and with the Alamo Gold package at £137.65 (approx. $206.68).

Today the price for an Intermediate SUV is £111.18 (approx. $182.54) and with the Alamo Gold package at £137.78 (approx. $226.21).

Obviously no cashback with these rates and if you pay with a credit card which charges a currency fee then you can add another 3%.

So looking for an SUV for around £115-£120 a week.

Will now hold out for the Holiday Auto's January Sale of 20% off which started today with Cyprus, a different destination every day, USA sale on the 21st.

Currently about £149.18 a week, so with 20% off should bring that down to £119.35 and also receive 11% Quidco cashback of around £13 so should be less than the Travel Industry price

http://www.holidayautos.co.uk/sale/terms/