Car hire - refundable excess worth it or not?

njsb14 · 14 June 2006 at 1:40PM

www.insurance4carhire.com in addition to there £49 annual european excess product do a daily excess product for £3.30 + 5%tax per day, PM me for a link.

John_Stone · 20 August 2006 at 1:14PM

Fred Mawer http://www.mailonsunday.co.uk/ suggests the following points to avoid excess costs on car hire,

1. Book with a multinational or British company. Then, if you do have problems, they should be easier to sort out.

The car hire broker with the best reputation is Holiday Autos (0870 400 0011, https://www.holidayautos.co.uk).

Multinationals include: Alamo (0870 400 4562, https://www.alamo.co.uk), Avis (0870 010 0287, https://www.avis.co.uk), Budget (0870 153 9170, https://www.budget. co.uk), Europcar (0870 607 5000, https://www.europcar.co.uk), Hertz (0870 844 8844, https://www.hertz.co.uk).

2. Shop around. I found rates for the smallest economy car for a week in mid-October rented from Nice airport ranged from £110.50 with Budget to £149.55 with Avis.

Before booking, be clear about important terms and conditions of the car hire contract.

You may well find, for example, that you would be violating the rental agreement if you drove on unsurfaced roads - a potential problem if staying in a villa a mile up a dirt track.

3. If booking direct with a car rental company, look at the conditions on its website - though bear in mind details aren't always exactly the same as the paperwork you'll be asked to sign when you pick up the car.

Reputable brokers such as Holiday Autos, holidayautos.co.uk or Carrentals, www. Carrentals.co.uk say they can provide a copy of the supplier's conditions.

They also offer 'damage waiver excess' (DEW) for £2.50 a day

Don't leave any nagging doubts until you're at the car hire desk.

You may be tired and jetlagged; the conditions may be in the local language; you are under pressure to sign quickly; and it may well be a major hassle to extricate yourself from your booking.

4. Clarify the excess situation. Even if you pay to reduce the excess to zero, normally you are still liable for damage to certain parts of the car, such as the tyres.

Take out an annual policy waiving excesses with insurance4carhire (020 7328 9034, https://www.insurance4 carhire.com).
Costing £51.45 for Europe-wide coverage, the policy can easily pay for itself in one trip.
Or alternatively for short term hires https://www.dailyexcess.com (the same company) excess cover for around £3.50 a day.

However, damage to many parts of the car is not covered in the arrangement.

Bossyboots · 20 August 2006 at 1:50PM

purplepatch wrote:

Hi,

Have done a few quotes with various companies and have come across the option to have a refundable excess.

Can't find out much about this. Just says that local suppliers will often take a deposit from you on collection of car, to cover any damage. Therefore choosing this option will mean that you can get this back.

Does anyone know how much of a deposit they take?

It makes about £12 difference to the total. It's difficult to know whether it's worth bothering.

Can anyone offer any pearls of wisdom?

We paid this additional premium in December when we booked a vehicle for a works outing. Our driver crashed, causing a lot of damage so for us the additional cost was well worth it. Otherwise the £500 excess would have been payable which would have been taken from his credit card on collection and then not refunded.

Tes_3 · 13 November 2006 at 6:18PM

Hello!!
I have booked many times through https://www.top-car-hire.com, but this company has only branches at the Canarian airports. The prices include insurance and taxes. I recomend you this company.
Best regards

trets77 · 13 November 2006 at 6:46PM

apoligies to thoose who have already seen this but here goes again.

Sunday Times has a campaign about the rip off practices and all too frequent horror storys of peoples credit cards being charged for dubious or non exsistant damge. Hiring a car soon YOU NEED TO READ THIS LINK !!!!!!

http://travel.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,18409-2166250_1,00.html

be sure you read the mailbag as well as the tips.

ignore it at your OWN cost !!!

thankyou tab welcomed

lynn44 · 13 November 2006 at 9:59PM

sun cars and holiday auto's ( plus many others ) are all run by National and Alamo

blockbuster_tuga · 13 September 2007 at 11:49AM

Hi,

me and my wife a well experience with one car hire broker called Algarve Rental. They are working together with Visacar as well as with Sixt, which are great companies comparing to little ones.
Two years ago, we rented with Algarve Rental and got a car from Visacar, their supplier. Got a brandnew Opel Corsa but unlucky we were, with 1300 miles on the engine we had a breakdown. We rang both, Visacar and the Algarve Rental guy and they resolved the problem within 45 minutes, replacing the vehicle with another mid-size Renault Megane.

About their excess fees, they prices are very low with little excess and also competitive prices with no excess at all (SCDW and TP included).

We are now 3-4 times a year in the Algarve and always rent with them. Never more had problems.
Can only recommend them. Their website is www.algarve-rental.com

Hope this helps!

Cheers

jack.chitt · 1 July 2009 at 1:23PM

landmark wrote: »

Anyone know of a good value for money Car rental provider?

the best car hire site i used was when i went on holiday with my wife, it is 121carhireusa

:j

loulou80 · 27 January 2010 at 11:15AM

I always used yescarhire.com for hire in the USA... they were cheap. Like RIDICULOUSLY cheap. Which is possibly why they went bust last year. Le sigh. They also used to give you super gold cover no excess for the equivalent of about a pound a day. I drove into a ditch in upstate NY to test it. It worked, seriously, I didn't pay a penny. Again, this is possibly why they ended up bust. I always wondered how they managed to undercut everyone by so much.

So, since then I use whichever car hire company I can get my mits on and get car hire excess cover with essentialtravel.co.uk car hire insurance because most big rental companies seem to charge a more than ever for reduced excess cover, (europcar south africa - I'm looking at you).

eslick · 27 January 2010 at 1:34PM

we have had issues twice in the last 5 year with car hire companies, they didnt want to know in both cases but our broker fifteen02.com always managed to get it sorted. One of them when the car was provided they told me it was a full size but it wasnt and they got a refund and then when there was a problem with insurance they sorted this without any issue. Both hire companies didnt reply to emails or return phone calls. For the US with fifteen02 the only excess would be for tyres and window.

Car hire - refundable excess worth it or not?

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