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Thanks, will do. It doesn’t help that my sister’s 40th falls on Easter weekend next year!
I’m looking at rentalcars dotcom and they are giving me the same prices as europecar and budget. What the pros and cons of booking through reliablke agent or direct?
Can anyone recommend a reliable car hire company at Alicante? Avis/Budget are quoting £250 for 3 days which is insane! Lots of other cheaper options but I haven’t used any of them before.
My experience has been that AVIS prices do come down at ALC . I generally book something I want as soon as I know I’m arriving and cancel and rebook as the price comes down (often multiple times as their cancellation policy is very straightforward ).My last one at ALC ( January ) had halved by the time I collected it . Easter may be a bit more tricky though. Service level has always been ok there too.
Avis showing 15% discount if you book by 23/6 on the app.
I will shortly be planning / booking a car in Australia for later in the year, not sure yet who with but the tips from this thread will be very useful. We have an Amex Platinum card, my wife is primary card holder, I’m secondary and would expect to use its insurance. When I’ve booked cars in the past (pre Amex Platinum days), I have requested that my wife is second driver and generally paid a daily rate for this, sometimes I think there might have been offers with second driver free. For my future booking, I’m wondering what I might have to do when booking… the second driver charge may be simply as profit, it may be for the car hire firm’s provided insurance. I think that I need to declare the second driver but don’t want to pay for insurance for either of us.
Any thoughts on how this should / might work?
Thanks.
Ive booked a compact SUV for Vancouver @ £50/day for 3rd week of July using Amex CDP. Everything else was double the price. Is someone a regular Vancouver visitor and knows if the price will improve? should i keep checking? any tips? thanks
I’m 62 and have an Amex Platinum (therefore including car hire cover). So far so good.
However, the OH – who would ideally be the second/additional driver – is 71 and according to the Ts&Cs all Amex benefits & cover cease once the cardholder reaches 70 (let’s discuss THAT piece of ageism in today’s world!)
Does anyone know if & how the rule applies to an additional driver?
Failing that, does anyone know how I can get hold of the right department at Amex in order to clarify please?Looking to hire a car from NCE airport later in the year but will need multiple drivers (possibly as many as 4 in total).
It’s very difficult to see these kind of charges up front on comparison sites. Each one needs a dummy booking and it all seems a bit of a rip-off as only one person can be driving at any one time!
Any tips for companies that don’t keep loading on extra charges per driver, or are relatively cheap in that respect?
@FFoxSake Demand isn’t high for four drivers, so there’s no need for them to compete in this regard.
You might get a better deal with an off airport company, perhaps a simple journey on the tram system.
@FFoxSake Demand isn’t high for four drivers, so there’s no need for them to compete in this regard.
You might get a better deal with an off airport company, perhaps a simple journey on the tram system.
Thanks Richie. Good suggestion.
@FFoxsake BTW If you’re thinking of taking out a separate car hire excess insurance policy, you may need to double check the number of drivers included.
@FFoxsake BTW If you’re thinking of taking out a separate car hire excess insurance policy, you may need to double check the number of drivers included.
Another great point and an important consideration. No doubt the inclusive Amex Plat excess insurance would struggle with that concept!
No doubt the inclusive Amex Plat excess insurance would struggle with that concept!
Surprisingly it doesn’t baulk…
From section 1.5 1.5 CAR RENTAL BENEFITS– THEFT, DAMAGE AND LIABILITY (p.13)
“These benefits apply to drivers named on the rental agreement which You are named on, subject to a
maximum of 5 drivers.”Btw Carrefour has some non-airport car hire locations in Nice.
Any recommendations for (local) rental car companies at Malta Airport? Or just go with Avis?
Has anyone rented a car in Dublin recently? BA is telling me there is no availability for next summer. I’ve done one search on the DUB airport site and prices next June (which is the latest date they seem to have been released) are starting around 100 euros per day! I’m looking at visiting Newgrange on a short stopover and public transport looks to take an age to get there.
Has anyone rented a car in Dublin recently? BA is telling me there is no availability for next summer. I’ve done one search on the DUB airport site and prices next June (which is the latest date they seem to have been released) are starting around 100 euros per day! I’m looking at visiting Newgrange on a short stopover and public transport looks to take an age to get there.
why do you have to book via BA? i see plenty of options for less than 30 a day, check on skyscanner, kayak, etc.
Got to the Europcar hire desk in Italy to pick up my vehicle only to be told due to lack of availability they’ve downgraded my booking by two levels to a basic Polo. Chap seemed disinterested in offering any other solutions, take it or leave it basically. Believe I’m entitled to a partial refund, who do I contact, the rental company or the third party broker who I had paid in full for the booking?
Does anyone have any experience of picking up an Avis car from Barcelona airport T1 using one of their automatic machines? Any good?
Well this is a first. Just received my final invoice from Avis after returning a car in Seattle earlier in the week, and it includes a credit for going back with more fuel than it started!
Although the rental agreement said Full, the gauge was about 7/8ths. I was going to complain when I dropped it off, but having worked out it was under $10 worth I decided spending more time in the airport lounge would be more valuable.
The $7.90 credit nicely offsets the extra charge for picking it up earlier than booked, and therefore going over the four days I’d prepaid for.
Had seen this referenced before but sharing for info.
Booked Avis via Avios car hire portal (by far cheapest in our scenario) for two weeks in Miami. Prepay rate albeit fully refundable, booked a while ago.
Dropped off car today and Avis app already showing $200 of extras for me to settle. I called the US number on the initial agreement and $10.99 is for 1 gallon of fuel (we must have filled up 15 miles ago and used a smigeon) with the remainder being for a per-day toll option they are now saying we opted in for at pick-up.
The lady at vehicle pick-up basically didn’t want to engage (“car is in space X, keys are on the dash, sign here and off you go”) all the while listening to her AirPods. I made it clear we didn’t want anything other than the keys but clearly she didn’t listen or care.
Needless to say I disputed the charge today via phone customer servicing. They offered me a 50% discount just to shut me up at which point I stood firm and insisted they remove the fee which has now gone in to a manager review queue.
We managed to do 800 miles without tolls as weren’t at all time pressured and enjoyed numerous stops along our way. Really annoys me that I’m having to dispute this kind of thing retrospectively but I guess Avis try it on as they recognise their rental car hub is a factory where the handover agent is never likely to face any consequences for this kind of thing.
Fingers crossed I get the charge removed but warning for next time.
@ukpolak You should hopefully have kept the receipt from the fill up to submit as evidence. The daily toll charges are for Avis e-Toll Unlimited – you’ll be able to see if this is checked on the rental agreement. If it is I don’t think you’ll get much satisfaction.
If you don’t get anywhere leave a negative review for that particular branch on google maps concerning the fact you rejected the e-toll unlimited but it was added despite you saying you didn’t want it. After a couple of days you’ll get a reply from their social media team with a reference number and an email address. Put your complaint to that department.
Also watch there isn’t a discrepancy betwween what you prepaid and what was credited against the rental. Avis are scamming customers by applying currency conversion on the day that the rental begins. If the GBP/USD rate has moved against between your booking date and the rental date they charge you the difference and a complaint will get this refunded but you need to be persistent.
Unfortunately all the Miami locations for Avis/Budget have deservedly appalling reviews.
Thanks @davefl yes all receipts retained. They cited something like “car supplied with 18 gallons but returned with 17” ie literally one gallon less and we can’t have done more than 15 miles.
I have now read some threads on here and didn’t realise how experiences with brands differ by location. We’ve always used Enterprise in some small-town US rentals (kinds of places where the guy handing over the car, takes the keys when you finish; apparently getting their business from trucking freight businesses or provision of temporary insurance replacement cars) and never had dodgy goings on.
I had thought that Avis would be fine no matter where I book as all somewhat plain / vanilla but lesson learned 🙂
Thanks for your tips including the FX shenanigans and will certainly leave a negative review.
Thanks @davefl yes all receipts retained. They cited something like “car supplied with 18 gallons but returned with 17” ie literally one gallon less and we can’t have done more than 15 miles.
Unfortunately all the Avis fleet in the US is now telematics driven so it’s a case of computer says no. You can even see your fuel level etc in the Avis app these days. No comparison though to the evils of Hertz now with their AI driven scanning of the car on return at some locations and billing automatically for damage not visible to the naked eye/previously existing/smaller than reportable etc.
I have now read some threads on here and didn’t realise how experiences with brands differ by location. We’ve always used Enterprise in some small-town US rentals (kinds of places where the guy handing over the car, takes the keys when you finish; apparently getting their business from trucking freight businesses or provision of temporary insurance replacement cars) and never had dodgy goings on.
Like hotels the car rental agencies are all franchised so you’re at the mercy of targets/poor unmotivated and overworked staff and a whole host of other variables. Funnily enough Enterprise was one of my worst ever rentals in terms of trying to rip me off and I’ve never gone to them since, and they have some of the highest one way penalties so that counts them out for most of my trips.
Thanks for your tips including the FX shenanigans and will certainly leave a negative review.
You’re welcome and in future I’d recommend a quick scan of the google map reviews for any rental location. Anything under 4/5 should be avoided if you can help it. I didn’t take my own advice and rented from one of the downtown Avis Miami locations – all the reviews about long waits were spot on, mine was nearly 3 hours.
@davefl, thanks for the heads up re the currency conversion – so does this appear as a separate entry on the email folio they send? I seem to have an extra £95 worth of charges from our recent 5-day Portugal trip which I haven’t had the mental energy to go through yet!
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