Business Car Rental Best Practice- Shopping Around in Australia for Good Deals

You can get excellent business car hire deals in Australia if you know where to look. Car hire can be a great alternative to regular car ownership, particularly if you’re doing a lot of traveling and don’t want to carry the costs and risks of wear and tear on your own vehicle. It’s also deductible, meaning you’re making a bit extra on your travels. The trick is to compare car hire deals and actively hunt for the best.

Car hire issues


When you hire a car for business purposes, you need to consider all your needs before you spend a cent.Do you need?

•  A big vehicle for transporting sales materials? 
•  A luxury car?
•  A good reliable car you’ve driven before, just a more recent model?
•  An off-road vehicle?
•  A good city runabout?
•  A car that can double for business and domestic use?
•  A van? 
•  Automatic or manual?
•  How many passengers?

Finding a good car rental site

These basics are really all you need to find your preferred car. Some online searching will find you a range of options, but- You can get a much better deal by being picky. The best business car hire companies in Australia are the major league companies like Avis, Hertz, Thrifty, Redspot and Europcar. These companies can provide you with any type of vehicle you need and standardized competitive rates.Now some very good news- The best Australian car rental sites include specialist sites which act as booking agents for the big car hire firms. These sites will give you a range of selections of types of car, prices and car hire companies. The best of these websites also provide a “cheapest” option, and can find the car you want for the lowest price. That’s good for the budget, and it also simplifies your search for the right car. If, for example, you want a luxury SUV with a lot of space for your materials, lots of features and good performance, you select your car from the range of options and the website then checks for the best deals in this range. You can find yourself with a great SUV to drive and a discount offer which cuts a lot off your net outlay. You can also get extras like optional insurance, baby seats if you need them and other features, so you’ve got everything you need laid on, with no need to go looking for these things. The websites also provide customer service, so if you’ve got questions you can get all the answers you need with an email. The national car hire companies have another big advantage- You can pick up and drop off your hire car anywhere in the country. If, for instance, your itinerary is taking you around the country, you can simply arrange to pick up your car from the designated place by your car hire in Melbourne and drop it off in Brisbane and fly home. This is very simple, very convenient, hassle-free car hire at its best. Before you do anything, check out and compare car hire deals. You’ll save time and money, and get the best deals available.

How to get the best deals on car rental

Getting the best deal on your car rental doesn’t have to be difficult. It’s just a matter of knowing where to look, how to compare car hire companies and keeping your ear to the ground about great deals. Here, we’ve listed the sure-fire ways to ensure the next time you hire a vehicle, you’ll be bragging to your mates about what a great deal you got:

Do your research

Knowing what’s on offer and by who is the first step to being able to decide between what is a genuinely good deal and what isn’t. Do some research and find out what each of the car rental companies have to offer. Some may specialise in providing a different range of rental services.


Let others do the work for you

Don’t have time to spend hours looking from website to website? Why not use a hire car comparison website to find out which company is offering what you want? There are now websites that help you compare different car rentals so you can make your choice faster. For the time poor, why not put your faith in the experts?


Don’t leave it to the last minute

Last minute bookings always lead to overpriced fees. Give yourself as much time as possible to find a great deal well in advance to avoid having to settle with an expensive car rental company a few days before you need the vehicle.  


Join loyalty programs


Apart from frequent flyer points, many car rental companies offer loyalty specials and offers only to those who are registered for their newsletter or loyalty system. This is a great way to find out about deals that aren’t necessarily advertised.



Through Work

Many companies have longstanding relationships with car rental companies. Use this to your advantage. You may be able to get a great discount on a rental car simply by presenting proof that you are an employee of your business.


Ask for a referral from a trusted source

If you have a friend or relative that has recently hired a car from one of the companies offering the best car hire Melbourne has to offer, why not ask them how would they rate their experience with that company? Referrals from friends and relatives are the best way to get a genuine opinion on businesses and their services.


Negotiate

Itʼs not always appropriate, but in some instances you may try to negotiate your rental deal with the car hire company. Remember, all they can say is no, so there is no harm in trying.

Jump on a good deal when you see it

Similar to cheap flights, cheap car hire gets snapped up fast so if you are lucky enough to come across a great deal, jump on it before itʼs gone!
Getting the best car hire deal is easy if you know where to look. I hope our tips on how to snag a great vehicle hire deal has given you some useful ideas for the next time you are in need of renting a car.

Rolls-Royce's baby scooped Beauty

BMW has started testing its new baby Rolls-Royce – and our spies were on hand to capture the moment this mule took to the roads around Munich. Size is relative, of course; this might be the smallest Rolls for generations, but it will still dwarf the majority of cars on the road.
Nestling under the disguise of this long-wheelbase 7-series lie the innards of the baby Roller, codenamed New Generation Saloon. The smaller Rolls will slot beneath the Phantom uber-saloon in the range and officials talk of it as ‘a Silver Shadow for the 21st century’. Strip away the BM bodywork, and the baby Rolls will look like the car depicted in our artist’s impression above.
Classic four-door proportions
CAR Online understands the NGS has a classic four-door silhouette that stretches to five-and-a-half metres long. Even Rolls-Royce owners downsizing won’t put up with cramped cabin conditions after all. Will it have the suicide – sorry, coach – doors so beloved of £265,000 Phantom owners? Nobody is certain yet, but it seems likely if customers are to be lured out of their top-spec BMWs, Mercedes and Bentleys.
Analysis of our exclusive scoop shots reveals a platform whose track is noticeably wider than a 7-series’, and the raised ride height is another indicator of what lies beneath this BM body. Check out the size of the brake discs too – required to halt a couple of tonnes of luxury car. The unknown at this stage is the material used to build the NGS; the Phantom’s aluminium spaceframe could be deemed too expensive for the smaller, more affordable car.
Many of the next-gen 7-series’ underpinnings will be used on the secret new Rolls-Royce, and a BMW-derived V12 is likely to provide the propulsion. In the longer run, we’d expect the British luxury brand to dip into parent firm BMW’s hybrid technology; not that Rolls-Royce owners worry unduly about their fuel bills - but they do worry about what people say about them. Even the world’s most exclusive uber-brands will need to face up to their environmental responsibilities in the 21st century.
Inside the baby Rolls
The inside will be as luxurious as you’d expect of a Rolls-Royce; the company’s artisans employ know-how and materials from the world of yachts and bespoke furniture to craft the sumptuous cabin of the Phantom. We hear there will be a high level of pampering in the smaller Rolls, with quality wood, soft hide and opulent paint choices aplenty.
But the NGS is aimed at a younger buyer than the Phantom, so this cabin will be available with much high-tech gadgetry. Expect radar-based cruise control, auto-shutting doors and fibre optic headlining for that star-studded sky effect, and there will be a new generation of digital read-out screens that are immune from bright sunlight and problems with shadows.
Baby Rolls: the timeframe
Expect a concept car to hail from Rolls’ Goodwood HQ at some point later in 2008 or, more likely, in 2009. This year the company is busy concentrating on the new Phantom Coupe which launches at the 2008 Geneva Motor Show, and the smaller car won’t arrive in production form until late 2009.
Prices aren’t fixed yet, but the baby Rolls-Royce won’t wear a truly bargain price. It will be significantly cheaper than the quarter-million pound Phantom and its £307,000 Drophead Coupe convertible sibling – but we’re still talking about an entry price of some £175,000.
But when it does finally go on sale it should swell the production figures at Goodwood significantly, with BMW targeting around 2000 units a year. A second assembly line is being installed to cope with the upshift.