Hertz by the hour? Only in Europe...

Posted by: Dean Foust on May 13

Wouldn’t you love to be able to rent a car for only a half-day — so that for those quick business trips you could get a car for a fraction of what you’d pay a cabbie (and you wouldn’t have to worry about finding a cabbie)? It’s a pipe dream in the U.S. (sure, there are services like FlexCar, but they don’t always have locations at airports), but is a reality in Europe if you rent through Hertz. That’s because those urban car-sharing services are taking off and giving the big boys like Hertz headaches. So if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.

The new “Hertz 369” service is now available at more than 1,200 city and airport locations across Europe, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland and the UK.

At Hertz’s European web site, you’ll see that you can rent for as little as 3,6 or 9 hours and get 100, 200 or 300 free miles, respectively. But is it a good deal? Let’s run the numbers.

I went to the Hertz web site to get a rate quote for nine hours and was offered a Ford Fiesta (pictured) “or similar” with a manual transmission and no air conditioning for £43 (or $84 U.S. dollars); a Ford Focus with manual transmission but with air conditioning rents for £46, or $89. (All of the prices I’m quoting here include taxes.)

Then I ran the numbers to see what the rate would be if you rented a car for a full day. That same Fiesta rents for £45 ($87) with unlimited mileage (but with a “refueling” charge if you return the car with a less-than-full gas tank). And the Focus rents for £60 (or $116). Add in the cost of topping off your tank, and you’re clearly talking another $10 to $30 at London gas prices.

So is it a good deal? Yeah, it seems so, though Hertz’s web site doesn’t provide any details as to how badly you get socked if you return your nine-hour rental car late. But otherwise, you could save a fair bit off of what you’d pay a cabbie, if you don’t mind navigating the streets of a strange city by yourself.