Free DVD Rental Online

DVD Guru Eric here. This is my personal review of the Love Film Rental service, which I feel is the best DVD rental company in the UK, closely followed by Blockbuster.

Free Trial Period: 14 days (2 weeks)
Number of Titles: Over 65,000 (more than any other)
Game Rentals: Yes
Adult Titles: Yes
Phone Support: Yes, 0844 482 0123
Min: £3.91, 1 Disc at a time, with 2 Discs per month
Max: £15.65, 3 Discs at a time, Unlimited Discs per month

I have been a loyal Love Film customer on and off for two years now and their service never fails to impress. From their fast and efficient system (I have never had a wrong order, broken disc or any other problem) to their constantly updating promotional offers, which you can give to friends and family, Lovefilm is definitely a DVD rental company you should check out. They are the largest with over 65,000 titles and will go out of there way to get DVDs you request if they are not already stocked. What more could you want?

Warehouse where Lovefilm stores its DVDs

The typical Lovefilm free trial runs for 14 days. I say typical because they often change it to a month and sometimes out of the blue they’ll send you codes through the post to have extra months for free, just as a thank you. I recently received two 3 month free promotional codes which I can give to friends and members of my family. If I give them to my partner and lodger, that’s 6 months worth of free rentals for one household!

As far as Lovefilm’s website goes, it is on par with Blockbuster, making it the joint best in the industry. They have all sorts of great features, from trailers, film reviews and several chart rankings, to downloads, Video On Demand, quizzes and celebrity interviews.

You can browse movies by genre or use their advanced search function to search via movie title, actor or director. One of my favorite features is their recommendations. Based on your previous rentals they’ll make a list of movies you might like. For example I rented the Godfather Trilogy and discovered similar epics such as Once upon A Time in America and Goodfellas (which I would have rented to start with if it didn’t slip my mind). So you can see how this feature may come in handy.

In my experience their customer support is top notch. Although during their teething phase several years ago they did get some complaints here and there, since 2005 they have won the British Video Association’s award for the UK’s Best Rental Service, and their phone support from 8am to 8pm beats any other company out there. I also highly praise their email support for getting me out of a pickle. Ordinarily you have to phone up to cancel your subscription, but I was unfortunately on a long train journey, without any mobile phone credit, when I realized my bill was due and I couldn’t afford it. I sent them an email with my laptop explaining the situation and they canceled it within a few hours. If you only wish to have a short break from subscribing then you can also set your account to have a holiday period from the website’s options, which now I think about it is probably what I should have done in the above scenario.

As for the rentals themselves, they are easily recognizable by their bright red packaging and easy tear and stick return envelopes. Although I have never received a faulty disc, there is a box you can tick on the envelope letting them know that the disc is damaged and they’ll send you a fresh copy. They offer the following rental packages, all with a two week no obligation free trial. Their pricing is slightly better than Blockbuster at the lower end:

1 Rental at a time, 2 Rentals Maximum per month, £3.91
1 Rental at a time, 3 Rentals Maximum per month, 5.87
2 Rentals at a time, 4 Rentals Maximum per month, £7.82
1 Rental at a time, Unlimited Rentals per month, £9.78
2 Rentals at a time, Unlimited Rentals per month, £12.71
3 DVD Rental at a time, Unlimited Rentals per month, £15.65

If you plan on only using a free trial then the last package is a no brainier!