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How to get a one-way Europcar UK rental for just £1

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This is one of those odd little deals which has been running for a while – for at least five years – but which you won’t know about if you are a new reader, and may well have forgotten about otherwise.

Europcar offers one-way UK car rentals for a flat fee of £1, including basic insurance.  Most are for trips to Heathrow or Gatwick.

This is not a marketing ploy.  The company is trying to save itself money by using you as free labour to get cars back to their original location or to re-allocate vehicles across sites.  Why pay a truck to haul a vehicle across the country when you can find someone willing to pay you £1 for the privilege?!

Europcar £1 UK airport car rentals one-way

How do you book a £1 Europcar car rental?

The Europcar £1 rental page is here (this may not work on mobile).

Availability is obviously not guaranteed but you might be lucky.  A lot of readers have taken advantage of this offer.

Your best chance of finding a deal is if you want to travel TO London, usually to Heathrow.  If I look at Liverpool, for example, there are cars this week to Heathrow, Stansted, Luton and Birmingham.

You need to pay for petrol, of course, so this is not necessarily cheaper than taking the train.  You also need to complete the journey within 24 hours of when you collect the car, and of course you need to get yourself to your nearest Europcar depot in the first place.

That said, I’m sure there are occasions when this could work out nicely.

PS.  My last article on earning miles and points when renting from Europcar is here.

Comments (29)

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.

  • Max says:

    Quite a lot of repetition in this article!

  • S says:

    Ladies and gentlemen… Editor of the year 😛

    (tongue in cheek)

  • Jan M says:

    I’ve used it probably a dozen times. It’s a really fab deal. The only hassle is finding a convenient petrol station near Heathrow to fill up.

    • AJA says:

      There are at least 5 petrol stations around LHR, the BP opposite Hatton Cross, two Esso stations on the Southern Perimeter Rd, a Shell on the Bath Rd near the T5 pod parking, another Esso on the Bath Rd near the Renaissance hotel, an Esso on the Clockhouse Roundabout on the A30 and a couple of Tesco stations, the nearest in Feltham on the edge of the industrial estate.

      • TGLoyalty says:

        Was going to say there are loads of petrol stations nearby and not even at inflated prices.

    • Lady London says:

      I think the Texaco on the North side of the A4 next to the Ibis Styles is the closest.

      There is also one on the A4 side going towards Heathrow just before the roundabout where you would turn hard left back towards Hounslow, or left onto the A30 towards Feltham, or straight ahead towards Heathrow hitting the roundabout A4/A312 at the edge of Heathrow. At that roundabout it’s still about 2 miles more on the A4 till you see the signs to drop the car back turning left onto Heathrow.

      For Tesco Petrol there’s Tesco at Bulls Bridge about a mile North on the A312 and one further South (think about 3 miles) at Feltham.

  • Sebastian says:

    Also worth noting Hertz do a very similar deal which I personally found much easier to book. Exeter to LHR, easiest journey ever!

    • Lady London says:

      Driiveme dot com is your friend. Especially for international one ways since Hertz either dropped, or hid better, their one way international drop no-charge for oneway program. Driiveme was one of Harry’s.

  • Richmond_Surrey says:

    I was looking for £1 one way rental to go up North to pickup the car and only found offers from Avis, but they were in limited date ranges. No other companies offered it. I guess, it’s easier to find them in other direction.

    • Rich says:

      Whenever I’ve looked, it has always been TO London that’s offered. I guess customers are picking up at LHR and dropping off elsewhere.

  • Ghosty says:

    I had one booked for last May to Heathrow. My flights were of course cancelled so even though it was only £1 I cancelled the booking online. (I didn’t want the inconvenience of an Europcar employee to perhaps wait for me to turn up at the pick up location).
    I was surprised that later the £1 was refunded to my card.

  • J says:

    how do you know what vehicle you’re going to get?

    • Tony says:

      You don’t. So if there’s one or two of you it’s not a problem. A family of 5 with luggage, however….

      Also I think the Hertz offer allows you to book for 2 days if you want.

    • RussellH says:

      When I booked one of these the process was no different from a normal booking – I chose the smallest car available, as always.

  • Smid says:

    They are prone to dropping this offer intermittently and they do it strangely by letting you get through the booking screen fine, then say you need to phone a number. Which then leads to someone denying any such offer exists.

This article is closed to new posts. Discussion continues in the HfP Forums.