Heading home for Xmas. Would like to rent a MINI for the 10-day trip (and not pay an arm & a leg in the process). Am having trouble finding any place in the area. Searches have come up empty. Zipcar is not an option.

Ideas?

 

I've seen a couple zip car coopers... no idea what the deal is with that company.
I doubt enterprise or hertz will rent a mini.

go "rent" one for an hour or so from a dealer

 

This might ne a bit of a loaded question, but why is zipcar not an option?!
To my knowlege they are about the only one that deals with mini's as rentals...mini's simply cost too much to rent...high inital cost, high repair costs, etc....the only places that would even entertain renting a mini is a place that caters to "hipsters", like zipcar....hense theor $$ multi day rate...

 

I'd be renting for 10+ days. Zipcar's business model is for hourly rental, and daily/weekly rental become prohibitive. ZipCar's daily rates are in the $70-80/day range. Plus it makes no sense whatsoever to add a sign-up fee for what is essentially a one-time use.

A few rental car companies claim to have MINIs in their fleets. I actually rented one from Budget at SFO for a week-long trip to LA a few years ago (weekly cost: $500). But I've had no success tracking one down so far. The closest I got was a company local to Boston, but when I wrote them, they said they had sold their stock and were not getting any new ones in until spring.

 

Well, Zipcar is simply a tremendously expensive option for a 10+ day rental. In addition to the $70-80/day rate, there's the application fee, making it just unworkable for a one-time event.

I rented a MINI from the SFO Budget a few years ago for a week-long "test drive" to LA over a long Thanksgiving weekend. It was $500 for the week. A page on Budget's website says that the MINI is a part of their "Street Fleet," but I can find no site that has any. I found them on another major chain's site as well, but again, no luck actually finding one. Finally, a Boston-local place also advertised them, but when I pinged them, they said they had sold their remaining inventory, and were not planning to get more until spring.

And considering most rental places consider MINIs "luxury" cars, not only is the cost to purchase quite less compared with others in that category, they retain residual value quite well and likely get sold back to the dealers after their year (or so) in service at not much of a discount, I'd think.

 

http://www.mvautorental.com/

Give these guys a shout. Located on Martha's Vineyard, but they service their fleet here in Boston. I'm sure you could work something out.