I've hired twice from Camplify so can give a hirer's perspective.
The good:
- allowed us to try out a couple of camper styles that we were considering as an upgrade path from our soft floor camper (we hired a Jayco Swan anid a Jayco Expanda on separate occasions)
- both of the blokes we hired from were great, they were friendly and very helpful in explaining how to set up and use
- the campers were both in very good condition
The not so good:
- the campers were both chock full of the owners stuff. This would be a good feature for some (ie. people that have no gear of their own and want to hitch and go) but a pain for us. Definitely something that needs to be checked and arranged with the owner in advance.
- you obviously have to have the right wiring on your vehicle to tow the vans. For us, that meant upgrading our 7-pin flat plug to the 12-pin that Jaycos need as neither owner had any form of converter.
- ditto a brake controller will be needed if not already installed (which we did have). That said I have recently seen that some portable brake controllers are now on the market that are AU-legal, so some owners may now provide these.
- This might seem picky, but neither owner knew what the ball weight or loaded weight was as supplied (with their stuff in it). So I had no idea how much more I could safely load in to the van without breaching my ball weight limit or overall tow limit ... which in turn could have voided my car insurance in the event of an accident.
- Camplify trousers a big fee, which wouldn't bug me so much if they were providing some decent value like insurance coverage (for the renter). We ended up arranging extensions to our rental periods direct with the owner for cash, and one indicated he would be prepared to rent to us directly in future.
The ugly:
- in a word: insurance. Both owners presented a certificate showing the vans had standard residential insurance which was void if hired out. One said they had "added" temporary hire insurance over the phone (but presented no evidence, so we had to take it on good faith). The other said if we damaged it, we would need to pretend to be a friend who had borrowed it (in other words, be party to insurance fraud). Camplify looks after the owner by grabbing a significant bond from the hirer which the owner gets to keep if damaged. They leave the hirer totally high and dry; their terms make the hirer fully liable for any and all damage and state it is up to the hirer to satisfy themselves that the owner has valid (and sufficient) insurance. Utterly ridiculous and very lazy on their part.
Would I use them again? Yes, but I would be insistent up-front on ensuring valid insurance is in place, and I would properly weigh it. I guess many would be fine with a "she'll be right" approach with the insurance but I didn't enjoy having the uncertainty over my head of being in a major accident and having to shell out for the entire value of the van and / or my car.
Hope this helps.
