to ask if anyone can suggest another way for us to get from London to Cornwall on boxing day?

[Latcher]

We usually drive down early boxing day morning but do not have a car this year.

Hiring a car would be £700 (we would keep it while down there and use it to drive back up).

There aren't any trains on boxing day. There are coaches but they get us in so late it's not really worth it, not to mention being on a coach with all our stuff and the DCs for eight hours.

There is a flight in the late afternoon which would get us there for dinner time, again too much money (over the train), to be worth it.

Can anyone suggest anything?

Go the next day?

There must be cheaper car hire?

Really really don't want to go the next day but will if we have to.

DH says that's the cheapest he's found for the dates we need over xmas.

£700 to hire a car?!

How many quotes did you get?

Can you borrow someones car?

Honestly, you may as well buy a car for that.

Go earlier? Don't go Boxing Day? There's bound to be some good telly on! Sorry, not very helpful I know.

Just a quick google brings up rental cars.com which has a ford mondeo from 24th to 31st for £270 collect from Wembley. There might be a few extras to add but not £400 worth.

Have you seen this for an alternative to ordinary car hire?

www.whipcar.com/

Haven't used it myself but know a friend that has and is a lot cheaper than the rental companies.

How about asking for a taxi quote? We get a taxi from north devon to heathrow when we go away which is £190 each way so you might be able to get a taxi cheaper than car hire.
Or is it cheaper if you pick up a car hire before Boxing Day and have it for a bit longer they may just be charging more for picking up on Boxing Day.

Can't pick it up on boxing day, have to collect it xmas eve. I have just checked budget and it's saying £480 from 24th-2nd so I am beginning to suspect DH hasn't done his research properly which is REALLY annoying (not that £500 is good or anything).

I contacted a couple of long-distance cab firms but they wouldn't take the job on boxing day. Can't go up earlier as seeing family in London xmas eve and xmas day.

whipcar looks awesome if it is legit, thankyou for the tip!

That's mad, I can rent a car for 25 quid a day here, just north of London. Unless you need a sports car or suv.

I think it's because it's xmas? Just need bog standard car which will fit us (2 adults 2DCs, some suitcases). And its a bit late to be doing this too I think. Grr.

No worries OP. Is definitely legit as I have a friend who has used it and also recommended by Martin Lewis. Tip 36 on link below.

www.moneysavingexpert.com/travel/car-check

Car hire is extortionate over Christmas, I looked into it one year. (Though £700 does seem high even so.) We had this issue every year and always ending up travelling on the 27th even though we didn't want to.

Not sure what other methods you think people will come up with though

Buy a banger and sell it afterwards.

Taxi / cab - try the ones that do airport runs, quite often they do long trips.

Advertise on Gum tree, may a single person is driving down that day and wants some petrol money.

Book something that's not a car? A van or camper van just done a quick google and the smallest one from this company is £35 a day

www.spaceshipsrentals.co.uk

It sounds like you need to shop around a bit more.

Or you could always ask around friends to see if anyone could lend you their car or second car? If people are not going to work around Xmas, that might be possible. I've leant someone my car for a week before when they were in a tight spot and I didn't really need it. Amending the insurance was simple and cheap. Getting them a really nice present will be a lot less than £500!

If you'll fit in a van renting ones sometimes cheaper.

I hired from Enterprise over one xmas/new year and it was about £200 for the week - you really need to look harder!

Alternative, join a city car club eg City Car or Zipcar - there are a few discounts around on the annual membership fee.

Enterprise quote is over £500.

We are already zipcar members but renting a zipcar for a week is more expensive than a hire car!

i too was going to suggest buying a supercheap car with a few months of tax / mot

you could get pay monthly insurance, then sell it afterwards, hopefully for about the same as you paid for it

Try harder.

Enterprise do not like to sit "fat" (with their cars all in their compounds rather than on hire) the way Christmas falls this year, most corporate hire will be sorted by the Friday. If you get nothing else sorted I would recommend going into your local branch on the Saturday and speaking to ten directly. By then they'll have some idea how many cars they will have left, (and believe me will want to get rid of them) push them for another quote. £700 is ridiculous? How long are you there. If its for a week, why not just hire the car for the journey, and drop it off the day after boxing (only a days rental) and the re hire for the journey back?

Compare hiring one for the journey down and then another for around here and another one back again. It is more faff but it may work out cheaper than hiring one from the same company for the whole time. It's worth a look

Why is this in AIBU?