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Zipcar Flex opens at Heathrow Terminal 5 – drive yourself home for £17

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Most readers, at least London-based ones, will know Zipcar as a ‘pound per hour’ car hire group.  They have a few hundred cars scattered across Central London and you can book them by the half-hour via their app.

If you live in the right area – there are about 10 cars within 10 minutes walk of us, the nearest around 30 seconds away – it is a fantastic service.  You are virtually guaranteed a car when you need one and the cost is a fraction of buying and running one yourself.

Zipcar Flex Heathrow Terminal 5

Zipcar Flex, which is currently being rolled out, takes the service one step further.  You can take the car and leave it wherever you want, within a designated zone.  Park and walk away.  You don’t need to drive it back to where it came from.  To be honest I struggle to see why I would ever want to do this, but Zipcar clearly has other ideas.

Zipcar Flex has now launched at Heathrow Terminal 5 for a 90 day trial period.  You can jump in a Zipcar Flex car anywhere in London and drive yourself to Terminal 5, where you must park in the Avis Budget area on Level 4 of the car park.  You can also do it in reverse – walk up to Level 4 of the car park, jump in a Zipcar Flex car, drive yourself home and leave it outside your door for the next user to pick up.

Zipcar estimates, to or from Central London, that you will pay £17.  This is far, far cheaper than even an UberX.

Full details are on the Zipcar website here.

If you are not already a member, my referral link – https://zipcar.mention-me.com/m/ol/ef8rk-robert-burgess-28 – gets you £25 of driving credit.

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

General

Comments (101)

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

  • John says:
    18 Apr18 April 06:20

    The Zipcar Flex thing would be useful to me as I often have bulky items to move around, but I bought a car 5 years ago because nobody was providing this service.

    It could even be useful for normal shopping if the parking locations suit you. Once a local supermarket was selling 50kg of rice for £15. We could have walked there, bought the items then picked up the car to drive them home, and it would take 25 mins, but would take 45 mins if having to return the car to the original location.

  • Annih says:
    18 Apr18 April 06:31

    I’m using the zip car flex tomorrow morning. I’ll let you know my thoughts.

  • Andy S says:
    18 Apr18 April 06:59

    No centre table in CE?

    Who’s daft idea was than?

    • Rob says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:19

      Saves weight ….. £1 off your fuel bill trading off customer inconvenience.

      • Craig says:
        18 Apr18 April 07:46

        If they really wanted to save weight they should have taken the centre seat out. Surely this is to allow them to use the aircraft in full economy mode. Rough calculation though, assuming 6 rows of CE and 1kg per table. 12kg per sector would save .4kg in fuel, at current costs of $700 per tonne, that is a saving of 20p per flight.

    • Rob says:
      18 Apr18 April 08:01

      Probably Carolina, but she is ex Iberia (because making an Iberia person BA’s head of customer experience was always going to work).

  • Andy says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:12

    It’s actually called ‘Free floating car sharing’, or at least the concept is called that.

    It is very popular in Europe, North America, Asia, where you rent by the minute, and pick up and leave a car within a designated area. Great if you don’t have a car and need to get/from an airport, have bulky shopping etc.

    I’m involved on the insurance side of this, happy to help write an article for you. You could even approach DriveNow who have this service in London, and they may negotiate a special sign up package for your viewers!

  • reddot says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:19

    Good idea and have been monitoring it since it launched outside of Heathrow. Zip Flex doesn’t seem to have much parking north of the Thames, plenty in the south. Hope it improves soon.

  • Jovanna says:
    18 Apr18 April 07:54

    OT: If I book 4 nights with cash at a Hilton and tag another night on with points will I lose the points due for the 4 nights?

    • Rob says:
      18 Apr18 April 07:56

      Edited to say: now you mention it, you could be right, yes.

    • ankomonkey says:
      18 Apr18 April 17:19

      I managed it in January this year. I had 5 paid nights followed by 1 reward night. I asked them to officially check me out and charge me for the cash nights on day #6. They did, and then checked me in for my reward night. We kept the same room and didn’t have to leave it to check out/in. I doubt this would be possible in savvier hotels, but it did for me in this case. Can you book them in different names (you/partner) to add some separation?

      I would have actually changed rooms if necessary as the paid stay got me base points and 2 promotions, so a decent total.

  • Michael says:
    18 Apr18 April 08:04

    I tried signing up to Zipcar last year and was immediately rejected and banned from asking why. The only reason I could think of was that my licence was too new, but it was a renewal and I’ve been for many years. There isn’t anything on a licence that says that though!
    So I hold a bit of a grudge. The messages I got when I asked why were rather rude too.

    • David says:
      18 Apr18 April 08:56

      The “Valid from” column on the back should show the date you passed your test.

      • Chris A says:
        18 Apr18 April 09:07

        These days it just has the date of which your photo card is valid from, as opposed to when you passed your test.

  • vand says:
    18 Apr18 April 09:43

    Curious how flex will work in the reverse scenario. Unless they have a lot of cars in a tight area, i’m guessing at least a 10-20 min walk to get the car from a central location. Which is probably enough to mean you just get Uber to the airport..

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

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