Hourly van hire is a popular service in urban areas, where you may only need a van for a couple of hours in order to move a few pieces of furniture or collect a bulky item and deliver it locally.

Not all companies offer this service, but the good news is that Thrifty recently launched its own hourly hire service, which could lead to big potential savings for anyone needing a van for less than half a day.

You can book hourly hire rates on Thrifty’s website by simply setting the pick-up and drop-off dates to be the same, and then choosing collection and return times.

I tried a couple of quotes and found that the rates for smaller vans especially can be significantly cheaper — I found that a short wheelbase van like a Ford Transit SWB hired for a couple of hours could be around 35% cheaper than the same van hired for 24 hours.

For some reason, the hourly rate savings on larger vans were less, or sometimes non-existent — but availability and rates on different dates and locations are likely to vary, so I’d suggest trying a quote for yourself if you only need a van for a few hours and are close to a Thrifty branch (you can see a list of Thrifty branches here).

Other choices: It’s worth noting that Hertz and Europcar also offer hourly van hire and have done for a while. You can see full details on our hourly van hire page (click here), where I’ll also add details of the Thrifty hourly hire service shortly.