Auckland City car rental for a Summer New Year Escape
By late December the light in Auckland hangs around until nearly 9pm, the pohutukawa are dropping red on the footpaths, and the Waitemata is glittering enough to make you forgive the humidity. New Year's Eve brings fireworks off the Sky Tower and a city that empties onto beaches from Piha to Takapuna. If you are booking car hire in Auckland City for the 29th of December through the 8th of January, you are shopping the busiest, priciest, most wonderful window of the Kiwi summer.
Here is the plain truth from the data: Ezi is the only supplier in this window, with 16 listings stretching from $1,650 to $2,410, and the median sitting at $2,030. Fourteen of those sixteen quotes are SUVs at the top end, which tells you the cheap rental cars Auckland City travellers want, the smaller hybrids, are a small pool at New Year. The smart move is to grab the $1,650 Corolla Cross Hybrid the moment you see it, because that price will not wait for your second coffee.
The fleet is overwhelmingly five-seat and hybrid-heavy, which is exactly what you want for summer motorway traffic and $3-a-litre moments. One seven-seater exists if you are hauling the extended family to a bach, but book it early. Pick your car up mid-morning on the 29th to dodge the airport-shuttle crush, pack light for a hybrid boot, and remember that State Highway 1 north clogs badly from the 2nd of January when half of Auckland heads to Northland.