Cheap car hire article discussion

ceejayblue

Not sure if its been posted elsewhere on here but Hertz have recently sold their Advantage car hire company in the USA and have had to change the name of their European Advantage company to Firefly. On Trip Advisor there are lots of complaints about Advantage in Europe so its just a heads up if anyone is thinking of booking a car in Europe.

Fellwalker

Booked with these in December, travelled early February. I thought I had paid everything (£227.50) except the snow chain hire (EUR 34.99) in the UK . Then we were delayed thanks to the damn snow chains having been badly packed so they were jammed and it took me and two French guys over an hour to free them. Then huge traffic jams on the French Motorways. So I had to leave the car at the airport without refuelling. We boarded the flight by the skins of our teeth.

I've just got my credit card bill, having had no advice, which includes a charge of £324.43 by Enterprise (the new agents at Geneva French side from 1/2/13) with the only description being "FERNEY VOLTAI FR". That is the nearest French town to Geneva airport.

When we flew out, we had queued at the desk which had a "National" sign, as that was who Economy Car Hire had booked us with. Half an hour later, we got to the front to be told they were no longer agents and we had to go to the Enterprise desk.

I've emailed both, and hope that it was just a mix up due to the new agency. But if you use a rental agency, who then uses yet another local rental agency, so that you are not dealing with the car hire firm that you had expected, information can get distorted. And you have no direct contact with the foreign business, when you had carefully booked in the UK to get round all of this messing about.

Worryingly, whilst Enterprise web sites have a contact form, with a specific option to ask about your invoice, France is not shown as one of the possible locations. Not even on the French "Enterprise.fr" web site!

fatboyslick

Hi

Staying in Orlando for a week in May and will need a car just for 3 days. My hotel has two car rental places in-house: National and Alamo.

What do people suggest - book in advance with one of these two or wait until i'm there and book on the day I want it (I'm still not sure which of the days I will need the car)

Also, complete noob to US driving - how hard is it?

thanks in advance

x333xxx

Has anyone used 121carhire.com to rent a car in the UK?

I was referred to this site after using one of the price comparison sites recommended by Money Saving Expert. I'm after a weekend rental in Sheffield, returning to the same location.

I was rather taken aback to find a quote for an unspecified rental company for £100 less than an equivalent quote obtained from Enterprise and Hertz websites.

It seems too good to be true! Usually if it seems too good to be true then it probably is just that ... but do you know better? :-)

treeca

Jever wrote: »

We used a comparison site to search for cheap care hire in the Algarve, Portugal and were really chuffed when we booked a Renault Megane for 1 week, with one additional driver, to pick up from Faro airport for £140. We are always very careful at reading the small print, so we were suprised when new smallprint appeared on the confirmation email AFTER we had paid for the car hire. This new small print said there was a compulsary 100 Euro payment to be made on collection of the car, which is non refundable. We were really annoyed by this because there was no way we were going to use a full tank and a full tank does not cost 100 Euro. :mad:
Anyway, we got to the airport in Faro, paid the 100 Euro and were then told that we would have to pay another 40 Euro for the additional driver. Apparently, when you put 'additional driver' on before you pay, it just requests one. Ridiculous. The damage excess waiver was going to be another 100 Euro, which we didn't want to pay.
We also had to put a 2500 Euro damage deposit on our credit card and the car had no breakdown cover, unless we wanted to pay another 200 Euro. The whole thing was a nightmare-there were loads of furious people around and the staff that were looking after us didn't even work for Drive4Less, they were from Geurin.
We checked the car over really carefully with the Geurin staff for existing scratches etc, then spent the whole week worrying about the car, praying it wouldn't get more scratches or dents and we would lose our 2500 Euro deposit!
Anyway, we will never be using Drive4Less again. We often hire cars in the UK and abroad and this was by far the worst experience we have had. Drive4Less may seem cheap at first but then they add all the extras and it ends up very expensive! I will be sticking to companys I know from now on-we have never had trouble with Avis or Europcar.

I had the exact same thing happen also at Faro airport
Had to pay an extra 150.00euro
Never will I use this outfit again

mgdavid

taking a recommendation from this site I just had the easiest, simplest and most efficient car hire experience **ever** with LUZCAR at Faro. Booked it online, small car, 3 days, chose Pay Cash option. Email came back with confirmation and instructions. You meet the rep at a table in the airport coffee shop, sign the forms, paid 75 euros cash, given keys and told where the car is. On return you just leave the car in the same car park with the keys in it, with the same amount of fuel as you started with (or a bit more in our case). It wasn't an old banger either - newish Chevy Spark. Cannot see any risk as they don't have any of my CC details. Proves it doesn't have to be difficult or expensive, simply brilliant :-)

caringa

Going to Crete in May and need a small car to collect from Heraklion Airport for one week. Any good suggestions welcome and also ones to avoid!

linzechris

Does anyone know if e cars are any good?
Also someone mentioned Luz cars, do they charge an excess for dropping off the car outside office hours?
I would be grateful for any answers or recommendations. I'm trying to get it as cheap as possible.

linzechris

Oopps! That should have read e rentals!

Handmaid

We used Luzcars at Faro last August. I was a bit unsure when told we would collect keys from cafe at airport but it was all really straightforward. Lovely Fiesta - almost new - no problems at all. On return we dropped back in car park and left keys in vehicle. Would definitely use them again.