If you are looking for car hire instead*, National is also currently offering a free upgrade on UK car hire – simply book an Economy, Compact or Intermediate car and only pay for the car class below.

*All of the offers above are subject to Terms & Conditions and are available for limited periods.

The links I’ve used go directly to the special offer pages – so if you use these links, it should be clear whether the offer is still running or not when you click through.

As this is a common question, I thought I would answer it here as well as emailing her back.

Over the last few years, there has been a lot of consolidation within the global car rental industry. One of the changes that has taken place is that Europcar UK Group own the National brand in the UK.

What this means is that the two companies have decided to combine their rental fleets and some of their branches. The result is a combined van fleet of 6000 vehicles and 250 locations across the UK – and 60,000 cars in the UK. In some locations, branches have been combined for efficiency and both companies now list branch offices with the same address.

Sheffield is just one example of this. A few others are Stoke on Trent, Aberdeen and Brighton – but there are many more.

Although the branches are the same, each company still operates its own pricing structure and has slightly different rental policies. This means it is always worth getting a quote from both Europcar and National – don’t assume they will be the same price, as they probably won’t be!

National Van Rental

• Free Additional Driver on all van rentals
• GPS units for hire at selected branches

National’s ‘Free Additional Driver’ special offer is currently in full swing. It’s a great deal, allowing you to have a second driver on every van rental for no additional charge.

An additional driver usually costs £7.27 per day when hiring a van from National, so this really is a money saver on top of their already competitive rates.

National are also one of the first major car and van hire companies in the UK to introduce the option of hiring a GPS (satellite navigation) unit with your car or van. At present, GPS units are only available for hire from National’s Heathrow, Gatwick, Oxford, Kings Cross and Marble Arch branches.

Europcar

• Great rates on one-way van hire
• Discounted mid-week van hire
• Hourly van hire

Europcar is one of Europe’s largest car and van hire companies, with a fleet of 6,000 vans in the UK alone. It is also still the only major van hire company in the UK to offer van hire by the hour.

Hourly van hire can work out really well if you only need a van for an hour or two – to collect some furniture, for example – saving you the cost and hassle of having to do a daily rental.

Europcar also currently have a fantastic mid-week van hire deal – with daily rates starting from just £22.50 a day from selected locations

(Currently available at Aberdeen City, Aberdeen Airport, Carlise, Dundee City, Edinburgh City, Edinburgh Airport, Glasgow Gity, Glasgow Airport, Inverness City, Inverness Airport, Teeside Airport, Newcastle Airport).

To book hourly van hire or mid-week van hire, visit Europcar’s website now.

Any mention of Europcar wouldn’t be complete without discussing their superb one-way van hire deal. The truth is that although one-way van hire is extremely useful for renters, it’s an expensive pain in the neck for van rental companies – who end up with their hire vans in all the wrong places!

That’s why most companies charge a huge extra fee for one-way hire – often £200+.

Europcar, on the other hand, have managed to put together a special deal that lets you have one-way van hire for an extra charge of just £24.99.

There are some conditions – the rental must be between 8am Monday and 4pm Thursday, it only applies to panel vans (not Lutons) and I’m not sure whether it’s available between all rental branches.

However, it’s still a great offer – if you need one-way van hire, it’s well worth getting a quote from Europcar to see whether you are eligible for this deal.

Well-known UK van hire company National Car & Van Rental are currently offering van hire customers the chance to add an additional driver to their van rental for FREE.

Adding an additional driver usually costs £6.19+VAT per day with National (and other van hire companies all have similar charges), so this is a great, money-saving deal.

To check their rates or arrange van hire with National, click here.

Having a second driver can be really useful when renting a van – especially if you’ve got a long journey and aren’t used to driving such a large vehicle.

This offer is available for a limited time only, so it makes sense to get a quote and book now so you don’t miss out.

The answer for breakdowns is normally to call the breakdown service whose details are provided in the vehicle – a tried, tested and generally efficient solution.

Accidents, however, can be a different solution, requiring time-consuming specialist handling and claims management. National Car and Van Rental have recently decided to outsource this function to a specialist company, First Call.

National customers are provided with a freephone number to call in the event of an accident. First Call will then handle the entire accident assistance process for the customer. National say that during its first four months of operation, the First Call scheme has cut the company’s claims costs in half – which if sustained will mean a saving of £1.5m per year.

For National customers, the scheme should mean a consistent, knowledgeable service for dealing with accidents – has anyone had any experience of First Call service with National? Feel free to leave a comment below if you have, it would be interesting to know more.

I replied that they were sometimes available as an optional extra, but hadn’t yet become  standard. National Van Rental, for example, now offers GPS sat nav units for hire at a selection of their UK, USA and Canada branches.

In the UK, the locations from which GPS units are available are:

• Heathrow Airport
• Gatwick Airport
• Oxford
• Kings Cross
• Marble Arch

It’s worth noting that vans are not available to hire from airport locations – so for van hire customers only the last three locations apply.

For anyone who isn’t familiar with the law, it is an offence to fail to identify the driver of a vehicle where a traffic offence has been committed. This means that van rental companies are legally obliged to identify drivers caught by traffic cameras or Traffic Wardens.

National Car Rental believes that this message is finally hitting home – in the last quarter of 2007, they saw a 52% reduction in the number of speeding fines awarded to drivers of National hire vehicles. This dramatic fall followed falls of more than 25% in the preceding two quarters – a great improvement for the company.

National also reported similar falls in the numbers of fines received for driving in bus lanes, failing to pay the London Congestion Charge and parking illegally.

National Car Rental’s Operations Director, David Alexander, said that he thought that the growing understanding that offences were always traced back to drivers of hired vehicles was “acting as a powerful deterrent”.

The figures are also good news for companies whose employees drive hired cars and vans for business purposes – the introduction of the Corporate Manslaughter Act in April 2008 means that companies will be prosecuted in cases were a fatality results from a failure of the company to meet its health and safety obligations – including road safety.

The changes mean that from early March, Europcar and National will offer a combined rental van fleet of more than 6,000 vans from over 250 locations across the UK. The rental car fleets of the two companies have also been combined, resulting in a combined UK fleet of over 60,000 vehicles.

Europcar UK Group’s Fleet Director Tim Bailey stressed that “The importance of vehicle availability should not be underestimated in the current marketplace.”

Both the Europcar and National brands are owned in the UK by Europcar UK Group, so the rationalisation appears to make good business sense and should also offer noticeable benefits for customers, giving a wider choice of vehicles at all locations.

One-way van rental is ideal when moving house or perhaps doing a student move. If you want to arrange a one-way hire, just select different pickup and drop-off locations when making your booking (click here for an online quote).

National’s van fleet includes the following vans – covering the most popular sizes requested by van hirers:

- Small: Vauxhall Combo - small yet capacious, the Vauxhall Combo is ideal for student moves, small business deliveries and as a car replacement. It’s no bigger than a medium-sized car and just as easy to drive.

- Medium: Vauxhall Vivaro SWB – these short wheelbase panel vans are spacious inside yet easy and comfortable to drive – even if you’ve only ever driven cars before.

- Large: VW Crafter LWB - this large, long wheelbase panel van is basically the same vehicle as a Mercedes Sprinter, but badged as a Volkswagen. This makes it great to drive, huge inside and a very effective way of moving lots of stuff!

While this doesn’t apply to vans yet (in fact, it’s not yet possible), it almost certainly will in time – enabling renters to take the environment into consideration when selecting a hire van.

Europcar UK Group’s Fleet Director Tim Bailey explained that:

“Our environmental commitment is central to our business development strategy and the addition of this information to our car groups is just the first of a number of initiatives we are developing.”

The move means that Europcar and National will include cars’ emissions ratings as well as their shell size and transmission when placing cars into groups. Europcar UK Group’s goal is to enable customer to “make more informed choices about the vehicles they rent and, as a result, help them contribute to an overall reduction in CO2 emissions.”