Your May Half Term Car Hire Checklist
With only a week or so until May half term, now is the time to think about your car hire if you're going away on holiday. To help you out, we've written a handy checklist to make sure you've got everything in order ahead of your rental.
Book your car hire
This one may seem obvious, but do make sure your hire is booked! As we get closer to half term the likelihood is that prices will rise as cars get booked out and demand grows. If you haven't sorted out your rental then now is the time to run a quote and get it booked in. Remember with us you get free cancellation until 48 hours prior to your hire starting, so if the price does happen to go down between now and the time you pick up you can rebook!
Driving licence and payment card
Now is the time to check that your driving licence is in date and valid (and you know where it is!). Car hire firms will not allow you to hire a vehicle if your driving licence is not in date, this applies to your additional drivers too. They cannot drive the car unless they have their licence and it is in date.
Similarly, check that you have the correct payment card for your hire. The payment card must be in the name of the lead driver. An additional driver cannot pay for the rental, it has to be the lead driver! If you have a credit card rental and realise you can't find your credit card or no longer want to use it, make sure you change to a debit card supplier. We have many of these around the world on our website and they can make hiring easier.
Excess Insurance
When booking your car rental, consider which route you'd like to go down when it comes to excess insurance. Many hire companies on Clarify Car Hire offer their 'Premium' or 'Excess Waiver' package options. Once you have selected the vehicle you'd like to rent the different packages are shown to you. These go from the 'Standard Package' which will have an excess and deposit you are liable for to the excess insurance inclusive options available from the hire firm.
It's worth thinking about whether you'd like to opt for the car rental company's own insurance. These are waiver policies which mean should there be any damage or theft to the car you can reduce or even remove the excess you are responsible for, as long as you've used the vehicle within the rental terms and conditions.
Should you decide that the car hire firms own excess insurance isn't for you, we do also offer a reimbursement insurance policy. This would cover you for both the excess and additional areas of the vehicle such as the glass, tyres, wheels, roof and underbody of the vehicle.
Whichever option you choose, we would definitely suggest getting some form of excess insurance - it means that if anything is to happen you're not liable for the excess and you have peace of mind whilst you have the vehicle!
Extras
If you need any extras for your hire, be it an additional driver, child seat or GPS device, make sure you add them on the results page when running your quote. If you add them here they will adjust the prices of your hire to include these and it can mean that the cheapest hire firm without extras is not the cheapest with them. By comparing different hire firms using Clarify Car Hire with both the vehicle and extras included you can make sure you find the right deal for you!
The other benefit of adding these extras on when you're booking your rental is that if you require a physical extra such as a child seat or GPS device, booking ahead ensures the car hire company know you are expecting to get one.
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