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Get FREE membership of the Zipcar car sharing club – but avoid the Avios deal

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I like car share club Zipcar.  We have a membership in London and there are about 15 cars within a 15-minute walk of our house.  The nearest, which is available 80% of the time, is literally 30 seconds away.  £6-£7 per hour for the car, plus £59.50 annual fee, is a lot cheaper and easier than owning a car.

(Long-term HFP readers may remember that, slightly bizarrely, I was interviewed for Management Today a couple of years ago about my use of Zipcar, Uber and Gett.  Terrible photograph.)

Zipcar

The process is very simple.  You book your car via the Zipcar app or on their website.

You initially unlock the car using a credit card-sized membership card or via your smartphone.  The keys are in the glovebox.  At the end of the rental, you reverse the process.

The first 60 miles driven per day are free with a charge from 25p per mile thereafter.  You do not pay for petrol, for insurance or for the London congestion charge.  Minor damage (scratches etc) is also not charged as you just return the car to a street parking bay and it isn’t examined by anyone.

If the petrol tank drops below 25% full, there is a fuel charge card in the car to allow you to fill it up without using your own money.

If you live in South London, you can even use a Zipcar for one-way trips using the new Zipcar Flex feature I wrote about a few months ago.  Full details of the areas covered are here.

You can find the nearest Zipcars to your house by using the tool on this page of their website.

A couple of years ago Zipcar got even better.  They teamed up with Avios, and suddenly I was earning 50 Avios every time I took out a car.  There is also a 1,000 Avios bonus for signing up and paying the £59.50 annual fee.

Zipcar has overhauled its membership fees

At some point recently, Zipcar has totally overhauled its membership package.  You can now join for FREE for a limited period if you are in London.  See here for details.

You have nothing to lose by signing up.  You never know when access to a car at short notice will come in useful.

There are actually three price plans now available as you can see on this page of their website.  These are their London prices:

FREE (limited offer) membership – pay from £8 per hour for the car, or

£6 per month – get a £6 monthly driving credit (expires if not used) and pay from £6 per hour for the car, or

£15 per month – get a £15 monthly driving credit (expires if not used) and pay from £5 per hour for the car

The £6 per month package is better value if you are sure you will use a car at least once per month.

The free option, however, is worth having as an ’emergency’ back-up even if you don’t plan to use Zipcar on a regular basis.

Unfortunately, the free membership is not available in Bristol, Maidstone, Oxford, Cambridge, Glasgow or Edinburgh where Zipcar also operates.

Don’t sign up to the Avios offer

Unfortunately, the Avios offer via this British Airways / Zipcar sign-up page has not been adjusted to reflect the new Zipcar pricing scheme.

If you sign up via the BA link, you pay an annual fee of £60 but receive NO monthly driving credits.  This is a poor deal, to put it mildly, even though you will get 1,000 Avios for joining and 50 Avios per trip.

It is far better to take the £6 per month option via their new pricing scheme and receive £6 per month of driving credit.

I can only hope that the Avios offer is overhauled soon to match the current pricing plans offered to the general public.

The sign-up page is here if you want to give the free plan, or one of the other new plans, a go.  You never know when it might come in handy.

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards

How to get FREE car rental status and other benefits via UK credit cards (April 2024)

If you hire a car in the UK, you can get special benefits (discounts, upgrades, free additional drivers etc) if you have elite status with a car rental programme. You can get elite status for free via certain American Express cards.

The Platinum Card and American Express Business Platinum

The Platinum Card from American Express and American Express Business Platinum come with two free car hire status cards. Your supplementary Platinum cardholder can also receive status in their own right.

From Avis, you receive President’s Club status in Avis Preferred. This gets you up to 25% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a guaranteed one class upgrade. For weekend rentals you will receive a two class upgrade, subject to availability.

From Hertz, you receive ‘Five Star’ status in Hertz Gold Plus Rewards. This gets you up to 15% off standard rates, a free additional driver and a one class upgrade, subject to availability.

Hertz also offers Platinum cardholders a 4 hour grace period on rentals. Your final day is treated as 28 hours, so a 1pm pick up with a 5pm return the following day is only charged as one day, not two days. We wrote about the Hertz / Platinum 4 hour grace period here.

The Platinum Card also comes with full car hire insurance with no obligation to pay for the rental via American Express. You can refuse any attempts to sell you additional insurance at pick up. This benefit has substantial value if you rent on a regular basis.

You can find more details on the two Platinum cards, and apply, in our full reviews linked below. You can apply here for the personal card and here for the business card.

The Platinum Card from American Express

40,000 bonus points and a huge range of valuable benefits – for a fee Read our full review

American Express Business Platinum

40,000 points sign-up bonus and an annual £200 Amex Travel credit Read our full review

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold is an excellent card in its own right. You receive 20,000 Membership Rewards points for signing up (convert to 20,000 Avios amongst other things), four airport lounge passes and £120 of Deliveroo credit. Even better, your first year is free.

There are two car rental benefits:

  • you receive Preferred Plus status in Avis Preferred
  • you receive a special package with Hertz – 10% off best available rates at participating locations, a one class upgrade for rentals of 5 days or more, subject to availability, and no additional driver fees

Find out more about the benefits of American Express Preferred Rewards Gold in our review. You can apply here.

American Express Preferred Rewards Gold

Your best beginner’s card – 20,000 points, FREE for a year & four airport lounge passes Read our full review

Category

British Airways and Avios

Comments (37)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • Calvin says:
    11 Aug11 August 05:12

    Sadly 4 months too young to sign up. 🙁

    • Alan says:
      11 Aug11 August 09:15

      Damn, I wish I was anywhere near this being the case! Annoying for offers but otherwise enjoy 😛

      • Rob says:
        11 Aug11 August 09:45

        You’re not THAT old Alan! Younger than me I think ….

        • Alan says:
          11 Aug11 August 09:49

          Haha despite my grey(ing) hair I am indeed younger than you, Rob – still many years past the qualification requirements for a Zipcar sign-up, sadly!! 😛

  • Aeronaut says:
    11 Aug11 August 06:00

    Zipcar also offer an overnight rate (Monday-Thursday, 6pm-9am) for the hire of many of their cars but also their vans of £29, which can come in very useful if you need to shift some stuff.

    They actually offer a separate Zipvan membership plan at £19.50 a year, but as far as I can see this new ‘Basic’ plan (which will have a £19 joining fee come the new year) is better value and gives access to their Zipcars as well.

    • the_real_a says:
      11 Aug11 August 12:27

      B&Q and Costco do Hertz vans on hourly rental at £10 per hour (not sure about central London however)

  • John says:
    11 Aug11 August 06:01

    Big fan of Zipcar here as well. That said, I’d recommend checking out DriveNow which covers parts of north London (Haringey, Islington and Hackney, I think).

    Tends to be much more expensive than Zipcar billed by the minute, but has competitive hourly packages and has offered one-way rental since it launched. In my area the big attraction is that you can usually get a DriveNow car at no notice, when all the Zipcars can be booked up at weekends.

    Not sure if there’s an opportunity to earn any points while using DriveNow, but might be worth a look.

    • Aeronaut says:
      11 Aug11 August 06:56

      DriveNow seems to be making a go of the one-way offering in London , and Zipcar had jumped on board with its Flex service. Hopefully they’ll both have more luck than car2go, a Daimler subsidiary successfully operating the same one-way car club model in a number of European cities, which didn’t last long when it came to (parts of) London and also Birmingham a few years ago.

      I guess, and I think it’s a point that Rob also made, that the one-way car club model is in competition with Uber et al – why hire a car and drive it yourself for a one way city journey when you can just hire a car with a driver, and not worry about parking etc.

      • Mark says:
        11 Aug11 August 07:25

        The competition between Drivenow, Zipcar and Ubeeqo seems to be hotting up. I’m regularly renting cars now for a full day for less than the cost of a full tank of petrol! And with these schemes petrol is inclusive (but not unlimited mileage).

        They have big backers with big pockets so i just hope it continues a bit longer!

        • Mark says:
          11 Aug11 August 08:15

          Which reminds me, also loving all the MyTaxi discounts flying around. 50% off journeys starting or ending at London airports this month (including Luton! lol). Do they still pay Avios since they dropped the Hailo name?

          • Rob says:
            11 Aug11 August 08:59

            Not seen any MyTaxi codes, feel free to send them over.

            The plan is that they WILL introduce Avios to MyTaxi when the IT is ready. At the moment, old Hailo customers are still getting Avios from MyTaxi but I guess they are being added manually.

          • Mark says:
            11 Aug11 August 09:16

            Here’s the link, i think it’s open to everyone, seems to be valid until the end of September, no code required. But pretty sure you need to type in the destination into the app before you hail the cab (rather than just whisper the airport name in the cabbie’s ear).

            uk.mytaxi.com/halfoffairports

          • Mark says:
            11 Aug11 August 09:19

            Also, just to mention their weekend 50% off anywhere to anywhere is still running as well: uk.mytaxi.com/weekends

  • the real harry1 says:
    11 Aug11 August 07:16

    I see from the FAQ:

    What if the Zipcar space is taken or blocked?

    Call us on 0333 240 9000 and we’ll work with you to find a nearby parking space.
    If there’s another car in the Zipcar spot, please make a note of the make, model, and number plate of the unfortunate offender so that we can have them towed away.

    ***

    has this happened to anybody? (ie space blocked)

    • GK says:
      11 Aug11 August 07:45

      Yes, very often. People don’t care.

      • Aeronaut says:
        11 Aug11 August 08:10

        The dedicated car club bays I regularly pass by in London seem to be quite well respected.

        Perhaps it depends on how fierce the relevant London Borough is at enforcing parking restrictions (which is often pretty fierce in my experience!).

        • Rob says:
          11 Aug11 August 09:01

          It’s happened to me. They are totally cool. All you need to do is park it in a nearby space, wherever, and call Zipcar to tell them. They inform the next renter where the car is. Should it get a ticket before the next person picks it up, Zipcar pays it.

          My biggest issue is spaces with tight gaps due to bad parking by others. In general, Zipcar users like me don’t drive very often. This means that we are less confident about trying to reverse a car into a tight parking space, especially as it is an unfamiliar car.

          I know which local Zipcars are in ‘end of row’ parking spaces and I prioritise those, since I know I will have no trouble at all parking it.

  • Simone says:
    11 Aug11 August 07:25

    I tried ZipCar flex. My review is not so positive.
    It is very handy for moving and parking in south London, but if there’s something odd with the car, then you have to call them and report it.
    I once found a starbucks cup and a cigarette hole, another time a scratch on the outside.
    Reporting can only be done after you are in the car and, sadly, you are charged £0.29 a minute to report damages (you are already renting), plus the call to customer service.
    It took me 8 minutes on average to report damage and customer service says that it is a customer liability to report, therefore unless the operator feels good, you are not going to get the money back. And, also, you just lost 8 minutes of your time.

    • GD says:
      12 Aug12 August 03:06

      It’s true that you need to report issues with the car, but there is a phone holder and cables to connect to the car, so you could easily put the phone on speaker and make the call while driving (which I had to do when the previous driver left the windows open during a thunderstorm and I got into a wet car!).

      Overall I have found the Flex service to be really convenient and in general a lot less expensive than an equivalent journey with Uber… Though it would be good if the Zipzone was bigger. 🙂

  • the real harry1 says:
    11 Aug11 August 07:57

    O/T BBC Newsnight knockumentary (or is it?) – 5 mins from 10/08:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inAQ8iKksGs

    interesting that the ‘BBC strategy is/ isn’t flawed discussion’ is all going so mainstream

  • Dave says:
    11 Aug11 August 07:57

    This is a deal?

    You can hire a car for 24hrs for £10

    • the real harry1 says:
      11 Aug11 August 08:07

      not with free petrol

      • Aeronaut says:
        11 Aug11 August 08:16

        And not from just around the corner and without having to go to a car hire counter and faff around.

        • Rob says:
          11 Aug11 August 09:04

          Are you really going to spend 30 minutes travelling to your nearest Hertz or Avis to ‘officially’ hire a car – with all the paperwork – just for a 40 minute drive to Ikea?!

          Walk out of your house, round the corner, open the car, get in, drive, done.

          The joke is that even I bought a car, the state of parking on our road means that I would end up parking it further away from our house than the nearest Zipcar!

  • Gavin says:
    11 Aug11 August 08:16

    Off topic – Avios.com have reversed a 4500 credit I had for taking out a mobile contract, so my account is now negative. This had to be manually credited in the first place, how do i get it resolved – phone call?

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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