Car rental in Oxford, UK
 

I am arriving/leaving Oxford, UK from the train station. I want to rent a car in Oxford, UK for three days the end of August to tour the countryside. I'm from the U.S. Midwest and have never driven in England, so I would like to hire a car where it would be easier to negotiate traffic than the train station pickups. Any suggestions of companies/locations that would make the transition easier?

Driving IN Oxford is a PIA -- so I'd get a taxi or bus out to the airport (off the Woodstock Road) rent from Enterprise there. From that location it could not be easier to start out - You'd drive a few hundred yards out to the main road (Woodstock Rd) turn right, one roundabout and two miles later you are in Woodstock and from there you are on the verge of the Cotswolds.

But I do have a question -- where are you taking the train <i>from</i> to get to Oxford -- London? If so it actually would be just as easy (might be easier actually depending on the rest of your itinerary) to take the tube out to Heathrow and collect your car there. Very easy drive from LHR to the Cotswolds all on motorway until after Oxford.

My daughter already booked a train from London (Paddington) to Oxford (we are returning from four days in Paris), as she wanted to spend a night/day in Oxford first. Hence the inquiry about rental cars in Oxford. Appreciate your insight, Janisj - I will check out Enterprise at the airport.

Not sure she needed to pre-book the train tix since there is no savings on what is essentially a commuter line. But since you are spending the night IN Oxford -- take the bus out to the airport the next morning.

Janis: Won't the cost of the ticket go up if we wait until last minute to take the train from Paddington to Oxford? We are going on to Moreton-in-Marsh, but just wondering?

>>Won't the cost of the ticket go up if we wait until last minute to take the train from Paddington<<

Nope. Booking for tomorrow the fare from PAD to Oxford is £24.70. Twelve weeks out it is . . . £24.70.

To Moreton-in-Marsh tomorrow £34.80 - same in October.

As you say that you're driving for the first time in England, please read the relevant sections of the Highway Code:

https://www.gov.uk/highway-code/contents

I'm afraid janisj's advice about pre-booking on Thames Valley trains is inaccurate.

Advance booking discounts aren't usually available to Oxford and beyond on trains leaving before 0800, and right now are available only up to eleven weeks and four days ahead of travel. But the train operator most certainly offers Advance discounts to Oxford - and has deceitfully manipulated the offer to drive fares up dramatically for those of us who can't preplan our travel weeks in advance. The resulting controversy has dragged even our Prime Minster into public denunciation of the wretched profit-mongers

There's a complication about advance bookings on that line in the week of October 25, probably because that's the week a competitive London-Oxford railway connection starts. So janisj's accidentally chosen a highly untypical week for her example.

If booked now for late August, post-0800 departures are half, and sometimes close to a third, of their rack price. To Cotswold stations beyond Oxford, the Advance savings can be even more dramatic - though Advance pricing's also far more erratic to those stations this summer, and currently varies widely from day to day and between stations.

Look at actual prices at www.nationalrail.co.uk

Good to know -- I did use nationalrail.co.uk but as you say it looks like I accidentally chose a week to do a compare/contrast (out at very end of the 12 week booking period) that happens to be a 'special case'. If I had used two weeks earlier it looks like it would have been as flanner says . . .

Thanks Flanneruk & Janis for the info!

If going from London to Oxford, also consider taking a bus. The Oxford Bus Company runs a line called the x90 that costs about 15 pounds one way. I found it easier than the train. You can get on at a few different locations, we used the stop at Marble Arch. The stop in Oxford is just a couple of blocks from the city center.

There's also an Enterprise rental office on the edge of town that would be about a 5 minute taxi ride from the train station. Very easy access to the A34.