Car rental mustachian style

Hi everyone,
Since I live in Zurich, I dont need a car on a daily basis and therefore dont own a car.
I am very satisfied with Mobility for day trips or shopping of big items.
But I have some difficulties to find cheap car rental for a longer period (3 days weekend to 2 weeks holiday) in Switzerland.
Mobility has the “best price” offer wich costs around CHF 170 per day with 200km included.
Hertz and other known car rentals cost around CHF 130 per day (less 10% with Mobility code) but you have to pay extra for gas.
Did someone made the research and know good mustachian way to rent a car for holidays or long weekends?
P.S. the numbers in this post are not for the cheapest vehicule, but for mid-class cars because I do not want to drive long distance in mobility’s citroen c1 or smart respectively in hertz’s fiat 500

1 Like

I used sunnycars.ch which resells other rentals with a discount price. They usually have good deals for europe but I haven’t checked how it compares inside Switzerland.

2 Likes

Thanks Gesk, I just checked it… But the deals in Zurich are in the range of 10% just like my mobility voucher.

I’ve always done like you. No car, but rent cars for multi-day outings and use Mobility or similar for shorter trips. Some car rental tactics I’ve used in places around the world were: going to the airport to pick up the car (or in some cities, the opposite, going far from the airport), declining insurance and using a credit card that covers it, and booking early (with free cancellation) if I thought I might go somewhere.

Another “hack”, although maybe not relevant for a Swiss resident renting in Switzerland, is using Hola VPN to change your country for searches (but turn it off after!), or for some companies sometimes just going to country-specific sites. E.g. I once saved 50% in Italy by renting from Europcar.it rather than .com or .ch. or .ca or .fr, etc. (although the prices vary from site to another!)

Also, there are often independent rental companies that rent older cars for cheap (CHF40/day), but they are usually really poorly advertised. Sorry, I don’t know any for Zürich.

By the way, I can find 27CHF/day compacts in Zürich on kayak.com for April. :slight_smile:

Thanks @chca, looks very good.

1 Like

What about sharoo? Did you try it?

I have used rentalcars.com (as far as I understand same group as booking.com, kayak, etc…) with extremely good deals for major rental car companies.

1 Like

If you go with Sixt, then you can save a lot of money when you upgrade to a “Shareholder-Account”

You just need to buy some Sixt-shares (there are two of them, SIX2 and SIX3. Six3 is a “Vorzugsaktie”, pays more dividend and is also a lot cheaper.)

You only need to buy one stock and email them your purchase and they will upgrade you. I’ve done it a few weeks ago and when I compare the normal rate to the Shareholder-Account-rate, then i will save around 5 - 8 CHF a day, wich is really nice. I have heard that they will give you a nicer treatment and nicer cars for shareholders, but I didn’t tested it yet.

Here is a (german) link for more informations. https://www.mydealz.de/deals/sixt-dauerhaft-bis-zu-20-rabatt-durch-aktionarstarif-kauf-einer-aktie-notig-1028625

11 Likes

I am a bit late to see this request, but better late than never.

Since I have lived driving rental cars for >1 complete year, here are the foundation rules:

  1. Use Easycar (aka Rentalcars) for fishing the best deals; usually airports are optimal first search.
  2. Never, ever, but never accept supplementary insurance (Super CDW) at the branch. Instead, head to services like worldwideinsure.com, fish annual coverage for a 2-digit figure. Job done!
  3. Aim for 26-28 days rentals for hitting lowest average daily rate. Beyond that duration, the rules for long term rental kick in, so the insurance regime and costing level shifts visibly. Accept that short term rentals will come with higher overhead costs.

Following religiously the above rules, I lived in Cambridge/UK for a year averaging 11-12GBP daily over said period, also saving a ton of money from parking fees while flying from Stansted. I know the latter because the following year I had my trusty Honda CRV ferrying me around and could do some comparisons. It was cheaper, but not that much cheaper, once you account for true TCO!

btw. if you ever paid (2) above, you basically subsidised my lifestyle of that year :slight_smile:
There are moments it makes sense, but in general it’s a highly overpriced and oversold service.

Also, rule (1) once made me realise that if I rented at GVA airport from the French side of the border, I was getting an SUV at half price (Was it a Tucson? whatever it was, it felt great! :slight_smile:

1 Like

Though you can’t drive with it in Switzerland right?

1 Like

Or get a supplementary from your own insurance (liability piece) - I got one from Axa; and definitely less than 3 digits for a year.

Yes, but unless you get lucky (I have!) they don’t have the vignette for the Swiss highways so you would have to buy it for an extra 40.-

I don’t own a car and rely on mobility and hertz. For hertz I have the tieftax card which costs 49.- and gives a 30% discount in Switzerland and 15% otherwise. One should make their own calculation to decide whether it is worth the price or not. For some people the discount from mobility (10% + free second driver) might be better.

I have you tried in CH? Because I did a quick check. Less than 40.- a day is difficult

Pff, only 40 franks? If you get really lucky, you’ll score a bill for many thousands of franks for smuggling!

News Schweiz: Aktuelle Nachrichten & Ereignisse der Schweiz - 20 Minuten - this is a case of EU resident smuggling CH car into EU, but it works the same way when CH resident smuggles EU car into CH without respecting import formalities.

1 Like

The 40.- was meant for the vignette.

It is not considered importing as the car is still domiciled with the rental company. I’ve explicitly asked this question at Avis at Geneva airport (French side) and the answer was that it is allowed to drive in Switzerland.

1 Like

They (Avis) allow you to drive it to CH, sure, but what about customs people? That’s who you have to ask, especially if you live here. CH resident driving an EU plated car in CH is generally considered smuggling, regardless of who owns the car, unless you explicitly declared it at the border - customs allows short term rentals in, but you must ask and get the paperwork at the border for this.

2 Likes

That is correct: in that particular instance I had to buy the sticker myself since I would be riding on the swiss motorway system. The biggest hassle wasn’t paying for the vignette, as much as finding where to buy it (hint: gas station), since crossing the border near GVA was a bit of a pain, either on road or even within the airport. My advice is, always try to be well informed on the small details.

Hi all

I am bringing this dusty old thread back from the basement because I haven’t seen any mention of GoMore on the forum so far.

They’re a P2P carsharing platform that expanded to Switzerland at the end of last year. From the looks of it (and my first experience so far) the website is easier to use and the platform typically has more reasonable prices than https://www.2em.ch/

E.g. I confirmed my first weekend reservation for a BMW convertible with 400kms (200kms per day standard) for about CHF 160 minus CHF 30 new customer discount. Extra kms can be added or paid after the fact at CHF 0.20 to CHF 0.28 per km (for the car I chose).

There’s also a referral program through which you can get CHF 40 off for your first rental (+ CHF 40 balance for me to use for my next rental). The link above does not include my referral ID so shoot me a message if you’re interested :slight_smile:

2 Likes

Anybody rents out their car with GoMore? Experiences to share?