It’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:

• Thrifty
• National
• Europcar
• Sixt
• Argus Car Hire (major broker, with access to all major suppliers)
• Hertz
• Easirent

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.