{"id":99806,"date":"2015-09-30T11:54:39","date_gmt":"2015-09-30T09:54:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=99806"},"modified":"2015-09-30T11:54:39","modified_gmt":"2015-09-30T09:54:39","slug":"best-and-worst-car-rental-companies-in-south-africa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/lifestyle\/99806\/best-and-worst-car-rental-companies-in-south-africa\/","title":{"rendered":"Best and worst car rental companies in South Africa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Car market information site, Carinfo.co.za<\/a> has reviewed local car rental companies in a bid to fish out the best service\u00a0in the country.<\/p>\n

The site, which<\/a> offers information about the car industry, including reviews and free online car insurance quotes, looked at the six major South African car rental agencies: Avis, Budget, Europcar, Hertz, Tempest and Thrifty.<\/p>\n

The first metric looked at the number of locations each company has; the second was which services the companies offer; and the third metric included consumer ratings of each service.<\/p>\n

It then used a simple point system to score the companies (winner – 5 points, runner up – 4 points and third place – 3 points), to determine a winner.<\/p>\n

Carinfo said it specifically avoided price as a metric, due to the multitude of variables which ultimately affect the final price of a rental.<\/p>\n

These include the age of the driver, the kind of car for rent, the length of rental, location of pick-up, and others. “All of these will effect your final pricing,” Carinfo said.<\/p>\n

How the companies performed<\/h3>\n

Car rental locations<\/strong><\/p>\n

South Africa is dominated by two car rental companies when it comes to physical presence. Avis has the highest number of locations, at 98, followed by Budget, with 91.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Company<\/th>\nLocations<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Avis<\/td>\n98<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Budget<\/td>\n91<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Europcar<\/td>\n65<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Hertz<\/td>\n37<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tempest<\/td>\n28<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Thrifty<\/td>\n22<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Services offered<\/strong><\/p>\n

Services were broken down into 10 categories, including loyaly programs, child seats, luxury cars, accident services, and others.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Service<\/th>\nAvis<\/th>\nEuropcar<\/th>\nHertz<\/th>\nBudget<\/th>\nThrifty<\/th>\nTempest<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Loyalty Programme<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nX<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Child Seat<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n–<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Disabled Service<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n–<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n–<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Luxury Vehicles<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nX<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Chauffeur Service<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nX<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nX<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Delivery\/Collection<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nX<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Accident Services<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n–<\/td>\nX<\/td>\nX<\/td>\nX<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Different pick-up\/drop-off<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
GPS rental<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n–<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Additional Insurance<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\nO<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Avis and Europcar tied for the top spot in the category, followed by Budget and Hertz in second and third, respectively.<\/p>\n

Customer Satisfaction<\/strong><\/p>\n

Customer reviews were sourced from consumer portal, Hellopeter, looking at positive and negative reviews, and scoring companies based on the percentage of positive reviews in total.<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
Company<\/th>\n% of positive reviews<\/th>\nTotal reviews<\/th>\nPositive reviews<\/th>\nNegative reviews<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
Hertz<\/td>\n22%<\/td>\n67<\/td>\n15<\/td>\n52<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Avis<\/td>\n18%<\/td>\n551<\/td>\n99<\/td>\n452<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Tempest<\/td>\n16%<\/td>\n131<\/td>\n21<\/td>\n110<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Europcar<\/td>\n14%<\/td>\n261<\/td>\n36<\/td>\n225<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Thrifty<\/td>\n6%<\/td>\n67<\/td>\n4<\/td>\n63<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
Budget<\/td>\n0%<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n0<\/td>\n18<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

Carinfo noted that users were more likely to report a negative experience than a positive one, and that most consumers probably don’t make frequent use of rental services, so a single negative experience would stand out.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, based on the data, Hertz had the best customer feedback, followed by Avis and Tempest.<\/p>\n

Conclusion<\/h3>\n

Taking all the data into account, Carinfo named Avis as the best car rental company in South Africa<\/strong>, with a total of 14 points.<\/p>\n

Budget, Europcar and Hertz tied for second, with 8 points each, and Hertz placed third, with 3 points.<\/p>\n

Carinfo emphasised that its review was not necessarily a scientific one, but rather served to provide data as fairly as possible, to help consumers make more informed decisions when it comes to renting cars.<\/p>\n

More on cars<\/h3>\n

Can one day without cars really change our travel habits?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Car-free month in Sandton: which roads will be affected<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Are these the most stolen cars in South Africa?<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The cheapest cars for sale in South Africa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Car market information site, Carinfo.co.za has reviewed local car rental companies in a bid to fish out the best service in the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":91728,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9876],"tags":[3205,1629,6537,10564,26,10566],"class_list":["post-99806","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle","tag-avis","tag-budget","tag-car","tag-europcar","tag-headline","tag-hertz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99806","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99806"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99806\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99820,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99806\/revisions\/99820"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/91728"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99806"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99806"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99806"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}