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.

Category

General

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues 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.
- Matt says:
  
  18 Apr18 April 07:04
  
  Haha have you bought lots of 50kg bags of rice now you have your own car!
  - Wil says:
    
    18 Apr18 April 09:16
    
    You are funny Matt.
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).
  - Lady London says:
    
    18 Apr18 April 15:56
    
    Surprised she’s not ex-Vueling?
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!
- Wil says:
  
  18 Apr18 April 09:19
  
  I am curious how the insurance work, given anyone can join their membership… if Rob will let you an article.
  - Andy says:
    
    21 Apr21 April 06:08
    
    Happy to!
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.
  - Alex W says:
    
    18 Apr18 April 08:18
    
    Has the policy changed? I tagged an honors stay onto paid nights once and got no points. I did eventually get the points but only after about 8 months of chasing and only got base points when it should have triggered a promo.
    - Rob says:
      
      18 Apr18 April 08:35
      
      Wait ….. you might be right. This rings a scary bell.
  - Jovanna says:
    
    18 Apr18 April 13:45
    
    I found this:
    
    https://headforpoints.com/2017/01/01/hilton-hhonors-points-on-mixed-cash-reward-stay/
    
    That could be it.
  - TGLoyalty says:
    
    18 Apr18 April 19:00
    
    Did it change with the recent hilton Change? It was the case that technically any stays including rewards earned 0 points.
- 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..