Our van hire price comparison engine is unique to us and provides live, real-time quotes while you wait (click for a larger image)

Price comparison websites have spread like wildfire in recent years, but like so many things on the internet, they are not always what they appear to be.

Here’s what we do

Here at vanrental.co.uk, we believe price comparison should mean this:

• We do not add a single penny to the prices we are quoted by the hire companies
• We only provide live, real-time quotes, we don’t simply calculate a price from a database of standard tariffs
• We get our prices directly from a number of different suppliers
• We offer these prices to you in a clear and transparent way
• We make it clear which company you will be dealing with
• You make your booking directly with the hire company, not through us

At the time of writing (November 2013), the companies who provide van and minibus hire prices for vanrental.co.uk fall into two categories, rental companies, and brokers (who source hire vehicles from a number of different companies).

• Europcar (rental company)
• National (rental company)
• Hertz (rental company)
• Thrifty (rental company)
• Sixt (rental company)
• Easirent (rental company)
• Argus Car Hire (broker)
• Van Hire 3000 (broker – it’s the van hire arm of rentalcars.com)

Our van hire database also contains details of a number of other companies, for who we cannot provide prices but do provide links to their websites. These companies are always listed at the bottom of our price comparison results.

And here’s what we don’t do…

We don’t deal with a single broker and pass off their prices as our own comparison results, without revealing how many suppliers were price-checked, or which company you might actually be renting from.

We don’t promise a comparison but only deliver a list of branches or phone numbers that you have to contact yourself for quotes.

We don’t make you wait — our price comparison results are instant and are obtained from our partner companies while you wait. The price we offer is normally exactly the same as the price you would get if you went directly to the company’s website.

More about vanrental.co.uk

We have close relationships with a number of suppliers and we have developed our own, in-house, price comparison engine, which searches more than 1,200 branches in over 400 UK locations.

We own the vanrental.co.uk name and business and are completely independent. We have no financial ties or special relationships with any of the companies we deal with — they are all equal and no one can ‘buy’ the top spot.

We have been operating a van hire website since 2007, when the site was founded by Roland Head, who had spotted a need for an independent van hire website that provided information as well as hire company details.

From 2007 – 2011 we traded as MyLocalVanHire.co.uk, and in 2011 we moved to the vanrental.co.uk address to mark the launch of our own, unique price comparison system — which we believe is the most comprehensive van and minibus hire price comparison engine in the UK. vanrental.co.uk is still owned and run by its original founder.

Naturally, all of this does cost money — reliable web hosting and skilled web development don’t come cheap.

vanrental.co.uk makes money in two ways: commission payments on sales we generate for our hire partners, and yearly advertising fees from some of the companies who list their branches on our location pages. All advertisers and partners are treated equally — there is no way that any company can buy its way to the top of the results.

What’s more, any website that claims not to charge anything for its services is either: a) dishonest; b) going out of business soon. 

If you have any questions at all about vanrental.co.uk or van hire generally, we’d love to hear from you. You can get in touch by email, tweet us @vanrentaluk or contact us through our Facebook page, facebook.com/vanrentaluk