Category Archives: Site News

Advertiser Profile: Admiral Self Drive Van Hire, Walsall, West Midlands

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Admiral Self Drive Van HireAdmiral Self Drive Van Hire is family-owned van and minibus rental business in Walsall, near Birmingham in the West Midlands.

Founded in 2002 by twin brothers Maurice and Joe Doyle, Admiral offers a wide range of vans, minibuses and 7.5 tonne removal lorries for hire and also offers a popular European van hire service.

Admiral’s fleet has grown to more than 50 vehicles and ranges from small vans like the Ford Transit Connect, through a full range of 3.5t panel van, luton and dropside models, up to 7.5 tonne box vans and pantechnicon removal lorries — probably the largest vehicles you can drive on a car licence (if you passed your test before 01/01/1997).

If you need to carry people, as well as goods, then Admiral offers a range of 6,7 and 9-seater crew vans, also known as splitter vans for bands (check out Admiral’s listing on our band van hire page), which have a front passenger compartment and a separate rear load compartment, providing good load security and passenger comfort. Admiral also offers 9- and 17-seater minibuses, for when passengers are the load!

Admiral specialises in offering vans and minibuses for European use, which includes full RAC European breakdown cover and all necessary documents (such as the essential VE103B form). The company’s website includes a useful set of tips on driving rental vehicles abroad and taking them on the ferry, as well as general advice on driving vans and minibuses.

Where’s Admiral?

Admiral Self Drive Van Hire is located just north of Birmingham in Walsall:

  • Unit 8, Maple Leaf Industrial Estate, Bloxwich Lane, Walsall, West Midlands, WS2 8TF
  • Two minutes from junction 10 of the M6 (A654 Wolverhampton Road)
  • Sat Nav Coordinates: 52.59052, -2.01360

For more information or to arrange a quote or booking, you can contact Admiral direct:

Hinckley Van Hire: Welcome to hinckleyvanrental.co.uk

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I’m very pleased to welcome our newest advertiser, hinckleyvanrental.co.uk, to vanrental.co.uk.

hinckleyvanrental.co.uk is a family-run van hire business that’s based in Hinckley and is part of Malex Automotive, which operates logistics and hire businesses. hinckleyvanrental.co.uk offers a delivery and collection service to the surrounding area for van hire, including Nuneaton, Barwell and Burbage. The firm offers discounts for long-term hires, special weekend rates, and also tries to provide an option for a half-day hire where possible.

A wide range of vans are available to hire at hinckleyvanrental.co.uk:

  • Small van (e.g. Ford Transit Connect)
  • Short wheelbase panel van (e.g. Ford Transit SWB)
  • Long wheelbase and extra-long wheelbase panel vans (e.g. Mercedes-Benz Sprinter)
  • 3.5t luton vans (ideal for house moves)

hinckleyvanrental.co.uk is located on Barleyfield on the north side of Hinckley. The post code is LE10 1YE and the branch is located just off Normandy Way (A47), next to Richmond Park and close to Morrisons.

For an instant quote or to make a booking, contact hinckleyvanrental.co.uk directly:

If you’d like to promote your van hire business on vanrental.co.uk, please click here to visit our advertising page for full details and pricing.

Van Hire Price Comparison: How VanRental.co.uk Works (and why we’re different)

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Van hire price comparison results

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

Stratford-upon-Avon Van Hire: ESD Self Drive Hire

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ESD Self Drive Van HireI’m very pleased to welcome our newest advertiser, ESD Self Drive Hire of Stratford-upon-Avon and Evesham, to vanrental.co.uk.

ESD offers a range of vans, minibuses and cars for hire, including:

  • SWB medium panel vans
  • Large panel vans
  • Luton vans
  • 15 and 17-seater minibuses
  • A range of cars and MPVs

The firm has two branches, in Evesham and Stratford upon Avon:

  • ESD Evesham: Blackminster Business Park, Birmingham Road, WR11 7TD
  • ESD Stratford upon Avon (newly opened September 2013): Western Road, Stratford upon Avon, CV37 0AH

ESD’s standard rates include 24-hour hire from 8am-8am, insurance, RAC breakdown cover, unlimited UK mileage and free additional drivers (unlike many competitors). Out-of-hours drop off is available and there is free car parking next door to ESD’s premises. The firm can also offer delivery and collection services, if visiting the branch isn’t convenient.

ESD offers a range of additional services at extra cost, including overseas/European hire, child seat and sat nav hire and sack truck hire, and can also offer discounted rates for long-term hire deals.

For full details of ESD’s branch locations, visit our Evesham and Stratford upon Avon pages.

If you’d like to advertise your van or minibus hire business on vanrental.co.uk, click here to take a look at our advertising page, for full details of what we can offer.

Larkfield Van Rental: Seymour Self Drive Hire & Storage

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Seymour Hire of LarkfieldI’m very pleased to welcome our newest advertiser, Seymour Hire of Larkfield (near Maidstone, Kent) to vanrental.co.uk.

Seymour Hire offers a range of cars and vans for hire and also provides car transporter trailers  and dropside vans with towbars. Here’s a rundown of Seymour Hire’s rental fleet:

  • Car-derived vans
  • Small vans
  • Medium vans (e.g. Vauxhall Vivaro SWB)
  • Large vans (e.g. Fiat Ducato LWB)
  • Luton vans with tail lifts
  • 3.5t dropside / beavertail vans with towbar
  • 7.5 tonne box trucks with tail lifts

Seymour Hire also provides a range of small and medium-sized cars and also has both split floor and solid floor car transporter trailers. Finally, Seymour can rent you a Land Rover Freelander and car transporter trailer together, providing a complete solution for anyone needing to move a car or other small vehicle.

Seymour Hire is located on New Hythe Lane in Larkfield, which is around six miles from Maidstone and situated midway between the M20 and M2, providing excellent transport links to the rest of the UK.

For more details or to arrange a quote or hire, contact Seymour Hire direct:

If you’d like to advertise your van or minibus hire business on vanrental.co.uk, click here to take a look at our advertising page for full details of what we offer.

Save On Van Hire With Our Exclusive 10% SIXT Discount Code

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Sixt 10pc discount bannerNeed to hire a van? Save up to 10% on SIXT van hire with this exclusive discount code.

No one wants to spend more on van hire than they really have to, and to help you save cash on your next hire, we’ve arranged an exclusive 10% Sixt discount voucher code for vanrental.co.uk users only.

 

Sixt 10pc discount code

 

The code is valid for UK van hire bookings made before the 15th May 2013 for rental periods up to the 31st May 2013. The discount is 10% off the standard rate, other discounts and optional extras such as baby seat and sat nav hire are excluded.

 

Terms & Conditions

This code is available for bookings made between 01/04/2013 and 15/05/2013 for rental periods between 01/04/2013 until 31/05/2013. Availability is restricted to participating UK branches only and is subject to availability. For full terms and conditions visit the Sixt website.

Is This The UK’s Best Van Hire Website? (We Think So…)

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vanrental.co.uk vanIt’s been a full nine months since we launched our unique UK van hire price comparison service, so I thought it might be a good time to take a look at how things have changed since then and the new functionality that’s been added to the site since we originally launched our van hire comparison engine.

Cheap Van Hire

Of course, the main reason to compare van hire prices is so that you can find the cheapest van hire in your local area. Rather than making you visit half a dozen different website, we provide all the prices in one place, saving you time and hassle.

When we were testing the system before we launched it, we found that you could often save almost 50% by choosing the cheapest van hire rather than the most expensive — and given the state of the economy, we thought you would appreciate this too.

Minibus Hire?

In addition to allowing you to compare van hire prices, we now offer exactly the same service for minibuses — our system will provide quotes for 7,8,9,12, 15 and 17-seater people carriers and minibuses.

I admit that we are not yet able to offer prices from as many companies as we do with van hire, but the service is pretty comprehensive despite this and includes prices from one major UK broker — which effectively means you get all the major brands included in one quote.

To see our compare minibus hire prices and get a quote, click here.

Where’s The Map?

We realised that by placing the main focus of the website on price comparison, we might risk alienating some of our users who preferred our original van hire location search service.

To make sure that didn’t happen, we kept the old system running in parallel and it’s still available today, on the right-hand side of the home page.

Enter a UK place name or postcode into the Location Search box and you can see all the van hire branches in that area on a map — and then click through to get a quote directly from the map markers. We’ve always liked this service and believe it is still useful for those times when you are not sure where the nearest van hire branches are — a common problem.

In case you aren’t sure what size van you need, we still have our ever-popular van size guide, too — it’s always been one of the most popular pages on the website.

You Want More?

There’s nothing I like more than adding a new company to the website and we now offer a wider selection of van hire branches and rental suppliers than we ever have done before. Here’s a quick summary — just click on the company name for a list of branches:

We also list a growing number of local, independent van hire companies all around the UK — in total, 38 companies are listed in the vanrental.co.uk database, giving you a grand total of 1,233 van rental branches to choose from! Click here for a full list of all our branches, ordered by location.

Europe or bust…

Most people just need standard UK van hire — but there are always people who need a little bit more and we are happy to help you find what you need.

The biggest demand we see is for European van hire, a service that is more widely available than you might think. Most of the major national chains allow you to take their vans abroad with prior arrangement and we provide full details of these on our European Van Hire page. Remember that one-way European hire isn’t normally possible — you’ll have to bring the van back to the UK.

The only exception for this is if you need to hire a van to drive between the UK and Spain. The Spanish costas remain popular with Brits wanting to live in the sun and there is a steady demand for one-way van hire between the UK and Spain. You might think that this will be impossible to arrange, but there are actually several specialist UK companies that offer this service.

You can find full details of UK-Spain van hire services on our Van Hire To Spain page.

Finally…

To wrap up with, I would just like to thank all the people who have visited vanrental.co.uk (and its predecessor, MyLocalVanHire.co.uk) over the years. We’ve been in business for more than five years now and really appreciate your support. Thank you.

Naturally, if you have any feedback or spot any problems, please do not hesitate to get in touch — you can leave a comment below or email us from our contact page.

Glasgow Van Hire: Car Rental Scotland

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I’m very happy to welcome our newest advertiser, Car Rental Scotland, to vanrental.co.uk.

Car Rental Scotland is based in Glasgow East at the Jim Neary Self Drive location on Blairtummock Road, close to junction 10 of the M8 and near to the A8 Edinburgh Road.

Car Rental Scotland offers the following types of van for hire:

  • Small vans (e.g. Ford Transit Connect)
  • Medium vans (e.g. Ford Transit)
  • Long wheelbase vans (e.g. Ford Transit LWB)
  • Luton vans

Pickup can be arranged from Glasgow Airport, Prestwick Airport and Edinburgh Airport as well as at the branch. Delivery and collection may also be possible by arrangement.

For more information, contact Car Rental Scotland direct:

If you’d like to advertise your van or minibus hire business on vanrental.co.uk, click here to visit our advertising page.

VanRental.co.uk Launches Facebook Van Hire App

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Facebook logo linked to vanrental.co.uk Facebook pageAlthough we believe that our unique van hire price comparison engine is the best thing since sliced bread, we know that many of you spend at least as much time on Facebook as you do on the ‘outside’ internet!

That’s why we’ve now launched the vanrental.co.uk Facebook app, which allows you to arrange van hire direct from our Facebook page! We’re pretty sure it’s the first van hire app on Facebook — although you can book cars and minibuses too!

The new app enables you too book car, van and minibus hire online and gets quotes from most of the UK’s major hire brands, providing you with cheap prices and a great choice of vehicles and locations. Here’s a screenshot showing how the new app looks:

Facebook van hire app from vanrental.co.uk - screenshot

To find out more or give it a try, visit our Facebook page at facebook.com/vanrentaluk.

Naturally, if you’ve got any comments or feedback, leave a comment below or get in touch with us through Facebook and we’ll be happy to hear from you!

Bishops Stortford Van Hire: Hilton Rental

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I’m very pleased to welcome Hilton Rental of Bishops Stortford to vanrental.co.uk. Hilton Rental is based on Raynham Road in Bishops Stortford and is only a few miles from Stansted Airport, making it very convenient for airport car, minibus and van hire.

Hilton Rental offers the following services to van hire customers:

  • Small, Medium and Large panel vans
  • Luton box vans with tail lifts
  • Meet and greet service at Stansted Airport
  • Delivery and collection service (T&Cs apply)

All vans are cleaned before each hire and regularly maintained and Hilton Rental can hire vans to drivers aged 21 upwards.

Customers can choose to use Hilton’s inclusive insurance and breakdown cover or provide their own cover.

Hilton Rental also offers a wide range of cars, minibuses and even campervans for hire.

To find out more, get a quote or make a booking, contact Hilton Rental direct:

If you’d like to promote your van or minibus hire company on vanrental.co.uk, click here to see our advertising options.