Hello All! Good grief - it's been so long. My son is now two years old and at playgroup one day a we...
Hello All! Good grief - it's been so long. My son is now two years old and at playgroup one day a week. I've nearly finished my MA and move house in a year's time. Life is busy, but I've returned to see what's going on!
Member since:10.02.2003
Reviews:36
Members who trust:59
I’ve been wondering what to write a review on for a long time now. It’s been nearly a month since my last review on here so I thought I should blow the dust and cobwebs off my computer and type away something that would benefit as many people as possible.
So after coming up with a policy for securing peace in the Middle East, and indeed around the world, I thought I should turn my attention towards more important issues such as entering my very first Ciao competition.
The category this time is a super one really. I didn’t want to write a review of my toothbrushing (or should that be teethbrushing?!) activities for you all to read about so was glad when the category announced was ‘transport’ and I could write a review about a company I have hired from on two occasions called ‘Sixt’. Two, incredibly different occasions…
But first! The lowdown…
Want to rent a car but don’t know where to go?! Why not try the company with the bizarre name ‘Sixt’?!
***MAKING A RESERVATION***
Very simple to do. Go to www.sixt.com and choose your country from the list. You can choose either Germany, Austria, Switzerland, France, United Kingdom, Netherlands or the USA. Other countries include in this list are Eire, Hungary, The Czech Republic and Guadaloupe.
Otherwise simply go to www.e-sixt.co.uk for the UK site.
When
this has loaded up you are met with a page that screams out: CARS! VANS! HOTELS! CHAUFFER!
Choose what you want to hire eg click CARS! For cars and, well, you’re not stupid really are you?!
Choose a car, pick the location of hire, pick-up time, drop-off time and hit submit. If it can sort out your chosen car/location/pick-up/drop-off time you will be prompted for your credit card details and contact numbers and addresses and your reservation is complete. If not, it just says this is not possible and you have to go through the whole process again. Doesn’t give a reason – it just is not possible…
The reservation process is very simple and easy to follow with clear instructions on what to do. At least, I had no problems with it anyway!]
***CARS!***
Sixt own a variety of cars and are reasonably priced, although, I think, they get a little too expensive the larger the car you wish to hire. Examples follow below:
Ford Fiest/Ford Ka £36.00 / day £170.00 / week £88.00 / weekend* £595.00 / month
Ford Focus Estate: £51.00 / day £246.00 / week £127.00 / weekend* £799.00 / month
Renault Espace £85.00 / day £421.00 / week £205.00 / weekend* £1,344 / month
*out of interest the weekend charges run from midday Friday to midday Monday.
All prices include loss/damage waiver, road tax/contract hire fee and third party insurance.
There are also a number of deals that are only available through the Sixt websites. The current deal is for the Bank Holiday Weekend at the end of May – that’s the 23rd to the 27th. Pick up is from noon on Friday 23rd until closing on the Saturday and the latest drop-off is 12 pm on Tuesday 27th. The offer, for a Honda Civic, is one price of £68.00! A hired car for Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday for only £68.00 – what a bargain!!
So there are a wide range of cars available at a range of prices. Check the website for further details of other special offers.
Minibuses are also available to hire from 12-seater up to a whopping 17-seater behemoth!
***VANS!***
As with cars the prices increase the better and the bigger the van you decide to hire. Example prices are as follows:
Ford Escort 1.8D £35.00 / day £88.00 / weekend £170.00 / week £650 / month
Ford Transit Hi-roof £45.00 / day £128.00 / weekend £225.00 / week £900.00 / month.
Prices include loss/damage waiver, road tax and contract/hire fee and third party insurance.
***HOTLES!***
Can’t really comment on this one as I have not booked a hotel room through the Sixt website, but the option is there for you to choose from over 54,000 hotels worldwide.
An example follows below: An offer price for the Five-star Arabella SheratonHotel, Jagdhaf, Dubai comes in at around £40.47 (Euro 58) per person for 2 nights, including breakfast and one dinner. Not bad really! Just have to get to Dubai to benefit from it!
***CHAFFEUR!***
This service is available in, to quote Sixt, 75 countries and over 480 cities and includes a wedding service, business service, transfers and sightseeing services. I’ve always wanted to turn up somewhere in a stretch limo – maybe one day!!
Basic rates for these services include:
Mercedes E Class to carry 3 passengers £17.60 / hour £1.56 / mile Minimum Charge £33.00
Mercedes S Class to carry 4 passengers £23.00 / hour £2.25 / mile Minimum Charge £45.00
Go on – surprise your friends and turn up at the cinema in a limo!
***LOCATIONS!***
A wide and varied number of places around the United Kingdom stretching from Aberdeen to Truro and Ipswich to Carlisle. Sixt are available at most, if not all, major and regional airports including Heathrow, Gatwick, Birmingham and Edinburgh. I was going to do a Sixt A-Z of the UK, but thought that would be far too much.
Sixt hire is also available should you find yourself is such far flung places as Morocco, Namibia, Barbados and Lebanon(!). Check the worldwide rental pages of e-sixt.co.uk
***OTHER INFO!***
Extra charges may be made for hire from centres in London – check the website for full details. Hired vehicles are supplied with a full tank of petrol and must be returned with a full tank of petrol otherwise you will be charged extra. Extra insurance is available on request.
***MY EXPERIENCES!***
Good and happy times… I have hired from Sixt on two occasions now. First was in Ireland from Dublin Airport. The reservation was made over the internet - there was no hassle finding the relevant rental desk in the arrivals lounge and getting sorted. A bus took us from the airport to the Sixt compound, we were presented with our car and off we went. A Vauxhall Astra in top condition and a joy to drive. No problems whatsoever. Great customer service, care and concern. And a free bus ride thrown in!
Not so good times… However, at the beginning of this month I hired a 17-seater minibus from Sixt for the weekend as I was taking my youth group up to Alton Towers for the day. I had printed off my reservation form stating pick up time midday Friday and return time midday Monday. The minibus was mine during that time and I had a piece of paper to tell me so.
However, due to my lift arriving late I did not arrive until 2.30pm and I fully expected my minibus to still be there. I walked in, clutching my reservation paper only to be told that they had decided I wasn’t coming and had given the bus to someone else. Great. I accept I could have phoned to say I was held up, but also they could have phoned me – which they did not!
I challenged the manager – who seemed more concerned about his journey home to Cardiff than to bother with the now minibus-less me – that the bus was mine. Surely it should have been held till closing time and had I not phoned and cancelled I would fully expect to have been charged for the full weekend?! Surely that’s business sense? Or am I a little stupid? (Don’t answer that one!).
To compromise the manger managed to find a spare 15-seater one and I had to use that one and panic how to find the rest of seats for the people who had booked to come!
I wrote to head office to complain about this and to try and re-coup some of the money I spent on hiring a different bus because of the decision of the local manger. I waited a week for a response only to be told that the local manager had told his superiors that he had told me he’d contacted me and left a message for me – which was a blatant lie.
To cut an incredibly long story short a number of e-mails went back and forth with no great effect. The local manager was getting away with lying to his superiors about what he had said to me and I was more upset about that than the mess up in the first place.
The end of the sorry tale is a good one though – I’ve been offered a 50% discount on my rental!
***OVERALL!!*** Yeah, I’ve had a bad experience from Sixt just recently, but they do seem to be a reasonably priced company in a highly competitive and flooded market. Sixt in Ireland were fantastic, great car, great staff and great service. Sixt in the UK were a little worse with dealing with a customer who is not brilliantly experienced in hiring vehicles and thinks that a piece of paper is enough to guarantee a reservation despite turning up a little late.
Give them a go – the vehicles are of a very high standard and great to drive.
I’d even like to try the chauffer services should I ever get enough money! Really fancy the idea of turning up at a posh restaurant or theatre all tarted up in a posh suit and arrange for a few of my friends to dress up as tabloid photographers and take my photo with lots of flashbulbs going so just for one night – I can pretend to be a superstar!!
Thanks so much for reading this. I hope you’ve found it helpful and enjoyable.
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May 2nd, 2003
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