Free kilometers in car hire - how to calculate free kilometres allowance in car rental with limited mileage

Unlimited mileage is a common policy in car hire in many countries. In other words, usually there are no restrictions to how long distances (how many kilometers) you can cover during the rental period.

Especially on the holiday islands of Mallorca, Tenerife, Gran Canaria, Crete, Rhodes, Santorini or other popular tourist destinations for British holidaymakers, it is unlikely to find offers with limited kilometers and the subsequent charge for exceeding the limit.

Car hire with limited mileage is not unseen in large countries, such as United States, Canada, as well as in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland and also UK. However, the limited mileage offers are usually restricted to more expensive cars from the premium/luxury segment.

VW Touran 5 +2  seater - often cheap to rent, popular holiday car.

In the countries of a smaller area, such as Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg, Croatia, Portugal, Switzerland, Czech Republic and Hungary, it is even more unusual to encounter car hire with limited kilometers, not impossible though.

When comparing car hire on Cartrawler search engine on www.find-cheap-car-hire.co.uk, the information about the mileage policy can be found in “Rental details” available with each offer displayed.

What are free kilometers?
As opposed to unlimited mileage policy, in car hire offers with mileage restrictions you will have a number of kilometers included in the rate - the free kilometres, and an additional charge for each kilometre above the limit.

What may sometimes confuse customers is the fact that some car rental companies indicate the number of free kilometres for the whole rental period, while others stipulate free kilometres per each day of the rental, for example 90 km, 100 km or 150 km per day free of charge. In the case of the 'kilometres per day' limit a natural question arises: how does Avis, Hertz, Europcar, Budget or any other car rental company knows how many kilometres we have covered in the hire car each day? The answer is actually quite simple: you should not dwell over the ‘per day’ clause but look at the entire rental period instead.

Example: calculation of additional charge for kilometers in an offer with a 100 km per day limit
When hiring a car with 100 free kilometre per day for a 10 day period, you can drive a total of 1000 km without any additional charge.

Important: it does not matter how the free kilometres spread over the rental period. You can drive for 500 km on the first day and another 500 km on the last day, without having to worry about the additional charge, as long as you do not exceed 1000 km limit.

The charge for kilometres over the limit is calculated by the car hire company on the drop-off.

If you are returning the vehicle after closing ours and leave the key in a key drop box, the car hire company will collect the extra mileage charge (if there is any) automatically, from the security deposit blocked on the customer’s credit card on the pick-up.