Cambio
So because I don't have a lease-car anymore at the very least until I get a new job , I signed up with Cambio, a car-sharing service. So far I am very happy about the service.
The idea is quite simple. You pay a 35 euro entrance fee into the program and you choose between 3 packages. There's the Start, Bonus and Comfort packages. The monthly fees are respectively 4, 8 or 22 euro's (1 euro less if you do automated payments), but the price per hour/day/week and per km are all cheaper for the more advances packages. Also, they all have a limited use per month which equals the deposit, which is 600 euro for the Bonus and Comfort package, and between 150 and 260 (as per own choice). This deposit is returned to you when you cancel your subscription with Cambio. Since we're also going to drive one of these to England this week, we went for the Bonus package.
The use is really simple. You can book online or by phone. Reservations can even be made only a moment in advance. There's many different pickup sites in cities all over Belgium and Germany. You can pretty much always get a car of one of the 4 different size types. At the pick up site closest to our house, at the St. Jacob square, just down the hill, they have about 8 cars and even should those all be gone, you could just go to one of the other sites. For example, there's 9 pickup sites in Leuven alone. When using the bonus package for a small car, you pay 1,75 euro per hour, 21 per day, 125 for a week. Between 23:00 and 7:00 you don't even need to pay the hourly fee. It's 26 cents per kilometer for the first 100km, and afterwards it becomes 22 cents per km. When booking online you can already put in the distance you expect you'll be driving, and you can already get an estimate for how much it will cost you. No worries with the gassing up cause there's a tank card in all the cars for all Esso and Shell stations in all of Europe (for the cars in Leuven it's a Total card cause there's no Shell of Esso around here).
Using the car itself is also quite simple. You get a magnetic membership card, which you can use to unlock a car that you reserved. Inside you then take the little board computer out of the glove compartment, type in your pin-code, and you can take the key. Then you can just use the key for further use of the car to lock and unlock as needed as long as your reservation lasts. And when you're done using it, you just put the key back in it's place, and you can lock the car again with your card. When you're running a bit late, and need to extend your reservation, you can just use the on-board computer to call Cambio, and you can usually extend without any issues. (though there may be an extra fee if someone had it reserved already and there's no other cars available for the next customer on that site, if there's another car free though, they'll just transfer that person to the next car). If you bring the car in earlier then your reservation ended, you only pay 1/3rd of the price for the remaining time.
I've used it 2 times already for job interviews I had on thursday and friday, and will be using it again for a job interview in Rumst on tuesday, and then again to go to Conception from wednesday till sunday. It's really nice and I can advice it for everyone. Of course if you're using it alone, then public transportation is cheaper, but the convenience is already worth it, but as soon as you get in there with 2 or more people, it's often cheaper already. For job interviews it's a godsend, especially for those in places that are hard to reach with public transportation (have been screwed over with bus connections that only go once every hour and then either don't show or show up half an hour late a few times already). But it's especially nice for those occasional trips. A family visits, trips to the vet, a pick-up at Ikea, a weekend away in the Ardennes, you name it. It's easy to use, quick and reliable.
Go check it out! There's also similar services in the UK and in the Netherlands.
The idea is quite simple. You pay a 35 euro entrance fee into the program and you choose between 3 packages. There's the Start, Bonus and Comfort packages. The monthly fees are respectively 4, 8 or 22 euro's (1 euro less if you do automated payments), but the price per hour/day/week and per km are all cheaper for the more advances packages. Also, they all have a limited use per month which equals the deposit, which is 600 euro for the Bonus and Comfort package, and between 150 and 260 (as per own choice). This deposit is returned to you when you cancel your subscription with Cambio. Since we're also going to drive one of these to England this week, we went for the Bonus package.
The use is really simple. You can book online or by phone. Reservations can even be made only a moment in advance. There's many different pickup sites in cities all over Belgium and Germany. You can pretty much always get a car of one of the 4 different size types. At the pick up site closest to our house, at the St. Jacob square, just down the hill, they have about 8 cars and even should those all be gone, you could just go to one of the other sites. For example, there's 9 pickup sites in Leuven alone. When using the bonus package for a small car, you pay 1,75 euro per hour, 21 per day, 125 for a week. Between 23:00 and 7:00 you don't even need to pay the hourly fee. It's 26 cents per kilometer for the first 100km, and afterwards it becomes 22 cents per km. When booking online you can already put in the distance you expect you'll be driving, and you can already get an estimate for how much it will cost you. No worries with the gassing up cause there's a tank card in all the cars for all Esso and Shell stations in all of Europe (for the cars in Leuven it's a Total card cause there's no Shell of Esso around here).
Using the car itself is also quite simple. You get a magnetic membership card, which you can use to unlock a car that you reserved. Inside you then take the little board computer out of the glove compartment, type in your pin-code, and you can take the key. Then you can just use the key for further use of the car to lock and unlock as needed as long as your reservation lasts. And when you're done using it, you just put the key back in it's place, and you can lock the car again with your card. When you're running a bit late, and need to extend your reservation, you can just use the on-board computer to call Cambio, and you can usually extend without any issues. (though there may be an extra fee if someone had it reserved already and there's no other cars available for the next customer on that site, if there's another car free though, they'll just transfer that person to the next car). If you bring the car in earlier then your reservation ended, you only pay 1/3rd of the price for the remaining time.
I've used it 2 times already for job interviews I had on thursday and friday, and will be using it again for a job interview in Rumst on tuesday, and then again to go to Conception from wednesday till sunday. It's really nice and I can advice it for everyone. Of course if you're using it alone, then public transportation is cheaper, but the convenience is already worth it, but as soon as you get in there with 2 or more people, it's often cheaper already. For job interviews it's a godsend, especially for those in places that are hard to reach with public transportation (have been screwed over with bus connections that only go once every hour and then either don't show or show up half an hour late a few times already). But it's especially nice for those occasional trips. A family visits, trips to the vet, a pick-up at Ikea, a weekend away in the Ardennes, you name it. It's easy to use, quick and reliable.
Go check it out! There's also similar services in the UK and in the Netherlands.