Rental cars need to be transported between offices. And travellers love freebies. Combine the two, and you get free rental cars, organized by Transfercar.
The New Zealand startup works with major car rental companies including Europcar, Apollo and Ace. Each rental company has a host of 'relocation cars' that need to transported to different branches. These are listed on Transfercar's website, along with the dates they're available, and interested customers can book online after registering with Transfercar. Drivers can also request to be notified by text message when cars are available for routes they'd like to travel. Most vehicles include basic insurance as well as ferry tickets between the North and South island, so no hidden fees. Rental companies often throw in a full tank of gas, too.
Although some rental companies already offer transfer cars at little or no cost, they rarely publicize the fact, and Transfercar is the first venture we’ve spotted that aggregates vehicles from a range of agencies, making the process far easier for consumers. Everybody wins: travellers with flexible schedules can drive for free, and rental agencies reduce their transfer costs. One to set up elsewhere? (Related: Car swapping for the holidays — Hertz subsidiary cuts frills and prices.)
Website: www.transfercar.co.nz
Contact: www.transfercar.co.nz/contact
Spotted by: P.J. Heta
This seems like a good idea, however I wonder how many people actually ever need to go from A directly to B and not back to A again!
Business model?
Never struck me as much of a challenge to give things away for free, making money seems to be more of a challenge...
This is absolutley brilliant! Love the concept, incredibly practical, a perfect example of creative problem solving - in this case, turning the problem to a win-win situation.
To answer Daniel: You live in A, you wish to visit B, 400 miles away. Train tickets cost you $120. Would you rather pay $240, or pay half AND get to drive around the countryside? Another great application for the large vehicles (eg: bottom of screenshot) is for people that might be moving to that area.
This cuts the costs of transport of the cars that need to be relocated. Instead of hiring a company that hauls them, customers do it for free. Presumably rental car companies pay Transfercar what they would pay said hauling company. I just can't imagine how Transfercar is lucrative. Any thoughts?
I think Transfercar is an amazing concept. As far as being lucrative is concerned, I think they make quite an amount from the rental companies. Firstly the rental companies save a lot of money as they get a driver to relocate their cars and sometimes also save on the fuel cost(I checked the website and it lists very few cars in which petrol was also included). To add to all of that money-saving, their rental service gets publicity from the Transfercars website too. As a customer, even if the freebie(ie the free ride) is not available, I would still like to go for the product from the same (rental)company next time. So the website makes a lot of money as it can lend its services to many rental car services.