February 14th - Why is car rental so expensive this year, and can you do anything about it?
Simon Calder's Independent Travel Podcast
The Independent
3.6 • 628 Ratings
🗓️ 14 February 2022
⏱️ 5 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
The coronavirus pandemic has left car rental companies with a shortage of cars, meaning car rental prices are three times higher than usual. But never fear! Here are some useful tips to save you money on your travel plans this Valentine's Day.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Simon Calder, welcoming you to my independent travel podcast, bringing you the latest |
| 0:06.8 | news on travelling, whether you're just dreaming of a great escape, looking forward to one or |
| 0:12.0 | actually away and having the time of your life. |
| 0:16.8 | Today I am in the very happy position of being perched in Kensington Gardens after a shower. |
| 0:24.6 | I've got to my left the very ornate Albert Memorial and to my right bathed in rosy lighting is the beautiful wedding cake of the Royal Albert Hall. |
| 0:41.1 | And straight ahead, this is why you should be perhaps seeking this location out next time |
| 0:47.1 | you're in London. |
| 0:47.7 | There is a full moon high above that great intersection of the Shard and the London eye glowing to the east. |
| 0:58.0 | Anyway, I'm here because I wanted to find a location with a road. |
| 1:02.0 | And there's a busy one nearby. That's because I'm talking about car rental. |
| 1:07.0 | A lot of people have got in touch with me and said, |
| 1:10.0 | it's scandalous. Yes, we knew that prices would go up after the coronavirus pandemic, but they are now ridiculous. |
| 1:19.2 | Typically three times more than we would want to pay. What on earth is going on? |
| 1:30.7 | Well, the car rental industry, whether you're talking about America or Spain or even the UK, was absolutely traumatised by the coronavirus pandemic, because |
| 1:40.0 | in March 2020, things were looking good, generally in travel and the car rental companies |
| 1:47.6 | have billions of pounds worth of shiny new vehicles in their fleets. They had many, many more |
| 1:53.3 | on order. Suddenly, almost nobody wanted them. So what could they do? Well, they sold off some of their cars. I heard that one large |
| 2:03.8 | company in America sold 100,000 vehicles. They also stopped ordering them and gradually just |
| 2:13.3 | hope that the world would come back and drivers are starting to return particularly in the US |
| 2:19.9 | and so you are seeing a shortage of cars now there's an absolutely certain feature in the travel |
| 2:29.2 | industry which is that if you've got a particular asset it might be a a hotel room. For example, on a busy night when there's a gig in town. |
| 2:38.0 | It might be an airline seat on the last Friday before Christmas, whatever it is. |
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