JUCY vs Britz

Both companies rent from Auckland, Christchurch and Queenstown and from nowhere else, so a one-way between the airport gateways is an ordinary booking with either. Both include bedding on every model, and both keep you on sealed roads by contract, with a narrow carve-out for a short access road to a campground. The ranges differ at the ends. JUCY publishes seven campervans, from a two-berth Toyota Estima with 1.2 metres of interior height up to a 7.9-metre six-berth; Britz publishes six models and stops at five berths (fleet vehicle count not published). Moving between the three depots costs differently as well. Britz prices a one-way leg by route and season at NZ$100 to NZ$300 for pickups up to 31 March 2027, and charges a flat NZ$270 location fee at Queenstown even on a same-city pickup and return. JUCY approves each one-way as part of the booking, so its fee appears only once you have built the quote.

The split that decides the trip is heating, and it runs through the middle of the Britz fleet rather than between the two companies. Britz names the fuel by model: diesel on the Venturer, gas on the Wanderer and Odyssey, gas or gas-electric on the Navigator, warming the living area rather than the cab alone. Six of JUCY’s seven list heating as drivers-cabin only, which is the dashboard heater and works while the engine runs. Only the six-berth Big Kahuna heats the living space, and JUCY qualifies even that as working when connected to a powered site. At the bottom of the Britz range the comparison collapses — the HiTop and Voyager heat the cab alone and carry a 12-litre hideaway toilet but no shower, so the two fleets converge on much the same specification. That matters more than a comfort note, because JUCY’s terms state that faults in non-mechanical equipment, heating and the fridge and water pump included, do not constitute a breakdown and that compensation will not be payable.

Where you may legally sleep divides them a second time. Since 7 June 2026 only a green warrant certifies a vehicle for freedom camping in New Zealand, and it requires a toilet permanently fixed in the vehicle. The two answer it differently. JUCY lists five of its seven campervans as self-contained and names the Crib and the Cloudbreak as not, on its booking filter and in its freedom-camping guide alike. Britz lists all six as certified, the HiTop and Voyager included, but its own descriptions of those two call their 12-litre hideaway toilet an ‘affixed portable toilet’ and a ‘fixed portable toilet’ — loose wording against a rule that bars portable toilets. With JUCY you are avoiding two named models; with Britz you are checking the warrant card on two. Certification belongs to the vehicle rather than to the model page, and freedom camping without one where the national rule applies carries a NZ$400 infringement fee, with a further NZ$200 for failing to display the card. The road lists then cut both ways. JUCY prohibits any unsealed road and voids every excess option if you drive one, at NZ$250 per violation. Britz permits an unsealed run of up to 12 kilometres to a campground, and closes ski-field access roads from 1 June to 31 October. It also bans Crown Range Road, which is fully sealed and the direct route between Wanaka and Queenstown. An uncertified van commits you to a paid site every night, so weigh these two over the whole itinerary rather than by the day.