Car rental in Melbourne is not known for being an incredibly cheap service, but those special deals can be found if you know where to look. Although the ‘big six’ multi-national car rental companies should always be taken into consideration when renting a car, it’s still important to look outside the airport car rental services and take a look at the offerings of ‘independent’ small businesses.

One way that cheap car rental services can be found is through contacting your favourite airline’s frequent flyer program. Often, as is the case with hotels, car rental companies offer discounts to members of a certain airline’s frequent flyer program, or even offer large mileage bonuses which may be used towards another trip, saving you money. It is usually possible to net some frequent flyer miles by renting a car from one of the ‘big six’ car rental companies (Thrifty, Hertz, Budget, Avis, Europcar and Red Spot), but mileage bonuses may be limited time offers. If you’ve provided your frequent flyer program with an email address, chances are they’re sending special offers on car rental to your inbox every day. If you’re like me, you don’t even read them, which is a bad

habit to get into!

Try using a car rental comparison web site such as vroomvroomvroom.com.au to find the best deals. Often, when you see all the fares lined up side-by-side, it is easier to get a clearer picture of what’s on offer. In addition, these ‘deal aggregators’ may have found a car that you couldn’t when searching manually!

If you want to hire a care in Melbourne, Australia, or any city for that matter, and you want a specialty item, such as a convertible, you’ve really got to do your research and plan ahead by several months.

In Melbourne, Avis has a Holden Astra 2 Door convertible available for a one week rental in June 2011. Budget and Hertz allegedly offer the Holden Astra 2 Door convertible for hire, but even a year from now those models are listed as “not available” – at least not through DriveNow.com.au, an Internet site that aggregates car hires in Australia.

Budget’s own Web site makes no claim about renting convertibles in Melbourne, and neither does Hertz’s Web site.

Europcar has an Audi A5 Cabriolet available for hire in November for an estimated daily rate of $101.62 AUD. The car has air conditioning, can seat four people, can hold two large bags and has automatic transmission.

So it looks like Europcar might be your best bet, as long as you reserve four months in advance.

Once you’ve hired your convertible, check out the Boneo Maze and Wetlands Centre, just five minutes from Rosebud, off Boneo Road.

One of the great drives in the Melbourne area is along Great Ocean Road, on the Shipwreck Coast, where over 200 shipwrecks dot the landscape. Many have been there for years, since the gold rush years of the mid 19th century.

Even after many searches, the fate of the Mahogany ship remains a mystery. It’s rumored to lie buried beneath the sand near Koroit. If found, it would prove that Portuguese sailors were the first Europeans to discover the Australian continent.