BikesBooking.com

BikesBooking is an online reservation service for motorcycle, scooter, quad bike and bicycle rental, and it exists because none of the car rental infrastructure helps you with any of that. If your trip is a Greek island where a quad is the sensible vehicle, a Thai beach town where everything moves on a scooter, or an Italian city where a motorcycle is faster than any car, this is the platform built for the question. If you need four wheels and a boot, it is the wrong shop entirely.

What the network covers

The platform compares 942 rental companies worldwide and lets you book directly with providers in 70 countries, with a destination picker spanning Europe, Southeast Asia, Latin America, Africa, the Caucasus and the Pacific. Vehicle types are bicycles, scooters, motorcycles and quad bikes. Published entry prices by destination give a sense of the range: bicycles from 5 EUR in Barcelona, scooters from 4 EUR on Phuket, 15 EUR in Lisbon, 17 EUR on Ibiza and 19 EUR in Rome, motorcycles from 36 EUR in Milan and 38 EUR in Nice, and quad bikes from 18 EUR on Santorini (checked August 2026). The company has been running since 2015.

Calendars are updated in real time so a booking confirms rather than waits, and reviews and ratings on each company are drawn from customers who actually rented.

The licence question, answered per vehicle

This is the part that ruins trips, and the platform handles it better than most. Requirements vary by country and by vehicle, and each company's rules appear in the search results and on the booking page. As a general map: bicycles need no licence at all; quad bikes need a car licence; scooters up to 50cc are usually fine on a B category car licence or an AM or A1 licence; anything with an engine above roughly 100cc needs an A category motorcycle licence. Spain and Italy carry a specific and useful exception, where a 125cc scooter can be rented on a car licence provided you have held it for at least three years. Some rental companies also ask for an International Driving Permit, which is stated in their conditions. Minimum age in most locations is 18 or 21.

Checking those two lines, the licence category and whether the company wants an IDP, before you book is the single highest-value thing you can do on this site.

Insurance, deposit and what happens at the shop

Every vehicle listed carries third party insurance as a baseline. Some providers offer comprehensive cover or CDW on top, where the collision damage waiver caps your liability at an excess amount rather than the full repair cost. The platform's own advice is to buy full insurance, which for a scooter on unfamiliar roads is sound.

Most rental companies require a security deposit at the start of the rental to cover the excess, any charges during the rental and in some cases fuel. Notably, that deposit may take the form of cash, your driving licence or your passport rather than a card hold, depending on the company, and it is refunded at the end provided the vehicle and extras come back in line with the rental rules and the fuel policy. Since practices differ sharply between a Barcelona bike shop and a Phuket scooter operator, the provider's stated conditions on the booking page are the thing to read.

If the vehicle is damaged or stolen and you did not buy full insurance, the rental company can charge repair costs. For theft you must present the keys, the documents and a police report to avoid being charged.

Booking, payment and cancellation

Reserving needs only a credit or debit card. You pay a small part of the total online to secure the booking and the balance when you collect the vehicle. A voucher arrives by email and must be presented at pick-up, printed or on your phone; the platform is clear that a rental refused for lack of a voucher is not its responsibility. Because the reservation creates a direct legally binding contract with the rental company, they know about your booking and must provide the vehicle you reserved, or a better one at no extra charge if that model is unavailable.

Cancellation at no extra cost is possible at any time more than 48 hours before the rental period starts. After that the full rental price is charged. The part paid online to secure the booking is not refundable in either case, which is the one number to weigh against the convenience of reserving ahead. Customer service runs 24/7 and multilingual, and the site is available in eight languages (checked August 2026).

Who it fits

BikesBooking fits island holidays, scooter destinations and riding trips, and it fits travellers who would rather secure a specific machine from a rated company than walk a seafront comparing hand-painted price boards. The price match guarantee, the absence of a customer booking fee and the model-or-better guarantee mean reserving in advance costs nothing against turning up.

It fits less well if what you actually want is a single excess-protection policy that follows you across suppliers, or a refundable prepayment. Those are car rental platform features, and a two-wheel marketplace built on hundreds of small independent shops is a different animal by design.

The vehicle car rental sites cannot give you

BikesBooking compares 942 rental companies across 70 countries for bicycles, scooters, motorcycles and quad bikes. For a Greek island where a quad makes sense, a Thai beach town that runs on scooters, or an Italian city where a motorcycle beats a car, this is the search that actually answers the question. Entry prices are published by destination: bicycles from 5 EUR in Barcelona, scooters from 4 EUR on Phuket and 19 EUR in Rome, motorcycles from 36 EUR in Milan, quad bikes from 18 EUR on Santorini (checked August 2026).

Booking ahead costs nothing extra

There is no customer booking fee and no credit card fee, rates are stated as equal to or lower than renting on arrival, and a price match guarantee backs that. You pay a small part online to secure the booking and the rest at pick-up. If the company cannot supply the exact model you reserved, they must give you a better vehicle at no extra charge.

The licence rules, before you fly

Requirements are shown per company and per vehicle: no licence for bicycles, a car licence for quad bikes, B or AM/A1 for scooters up to 50cc, A category above roughly 100cc, and in Spain or Italy a 125cc scooter on a car licence held three years or more. Some companies require an International Driving Permit, stated in their conditions. Every listed vehicle carries third party insurance, with comprehensive cover or CDW available from some providers. Support runs 24/7 and multilingual.

Who should look at something else

Free cancellation runs to 48 hours before the rental starts, and the amount paid online to secure the booking is not refundable even inside that window, so a car rental platform that returns the full prepayment is the better fit for unstable plans. The deposit is taken at the shop and may be cash, your licence or your passport rather than a card hold, which suits some travellers and not others. And if you want one excess-protection policy covering every supplier you use, that is a car rental product rather than a two-wheel one. Choose BikesBooking when the right vehicle for the trip has two wheels and you want it reserved, rated and priced before you land.