Cheap car hire article discussion

hettiecarro

Trying to hire car in Italy for August. Don't have credit card.
Anyone know any companies that don't 'ringfence' money on credit card for excess ?

nancyboylebike

claire.cmd wrote: »

Beware Atlas choice/erentals car hire!
Well I would say you get what you pay for!
I had one car hire with enterprise car hire via Atlas choice which was fine then 3 weeks later after my vacation I had another with Alamo via atlas but when i tuned up at the airport i apparently failed an address check even though I have no adverse credit ad have owned my home for 6 years, I offered to have my bank fax a statement but they would not accept it and just told me to call atlas.

I called atlas choice and the Customer service advisor displayed a very rude unhelpful and uncompassionate attitude, no manager or supervisor there for me to speak to nor did the advisor take my details and offer the manager call me when he becomes available, they could not transfer the booking to enterprise (as they would hire me a car) nor would they cancel my car hire with Alamo, so there I was with a 1year old, 9 year old 3 cases and a car seat stranded at the airport!

Thus my car hire for 11 days has in total cost me...
£163.55 Paid to eRentals/atlas for original hire
£92.56 Paid to Enterprise to get myself and daughters home
£180.52 Paid to Enterprise for the remainder of the hire period
A total of £463.63 compared to the original quote of £163.55!!

I am still battling for a refund of the original payment but after almost a month and a few nice and not so nice emails it doesn't look very good!
So no I would NEVER use Alamo car hire which is also erentals car hire again!

Yes, I agree Atlas Choice are truly dreadful with regard to customer service. I have now given up trying to get a refund of a fee lost due to Erentals.co.uk poor website. And when I try to make contact with Erentals I get a number for Atlas Choice, who deny having any connection with Erentals. Work that out!!

napalm69

Does anybody know why it is virtually impossible to hire a Smart cart anymore? When we visit Europe we always hired a Smart car. Mainly because it was always good value for an automatic gearbox option but also because it was small and compact and therefore great for getting around little hill villages with narrow streets and parking in the smallest of spaces. It was very economical on petrol, usually had built in sat nav and was perfect for two people travelling light.

Now though i can't find a Smart car for hire at any of the companies we used before. Up until this year we've had no problem sourcing one for hire. The one exception was Europcar but was much more exspensive than before (was £225 for four days, we usually hire for around £80 for the week!).

Smart cars are still in production so why are they now hard to find for hire at a good price? Have hire companies now realised that they were much cheaper than the next automatic in the range and removed them so that they can make more money from automatic users? Seems like a scam to me.

ohit

Any particular recommended sites to book 2 weeks car hire for Malaga in May ?

The comparison sites (via MSE article) are coming up with great prices, but then the have the "full tank fuel, return empty" nonsense in there.

Difficult to find a cheap and no-nonsense rental option.

permie

Hi. Thanks for useful article. Decided to go with Questor for car hire excess insurance as:

Moneymaxim's privacy policy is so small it's illegible and no way to increase size. When looked with magnifying glass saw that the only way to stop them giving your details to third parties (anyone they like) is to write to them. Of course by the time they receive letter in post they will already have passed on your details thus setting up unstoppable chain of having details sold on from one company to another.
Direct Car Excess Insurance listed 'Damage' as being covered but when clicked for policy wording to see what that included nothing comes up except a new blank tab.
Others may have explanation for this but didn't want to take the chance.
MSE If it's possible would be great to have line on privacy policy included in details of comparison or other sites.
Thanks

nikita117

Hello,
I think I have the clue, it's been a long time that I'm a constant cleint of Ooloc it's a broker with the cheapest car rental rates ever, they bargain the best rates with the most known companies around the world, as avis, sixt, alamo, budget... the price includes unlimited mileage when you rent for a meduim period, insurance and so on... You should try it, you won't regret... I advise all my friends of it and they advise theirs

nortonchina

Can anyone recommend the cheapest place to hire a newish small car in London, I will need it for seven days and it has to have unlimited kilometres.

Jackie12

There are a number of amazing deals are available in the market for hiring the taxis. By selecting the right kind of service provider like Heathrow airport taxis will make the people to utilize a number of benefits..

George_Benjamin

A good way to save a lot of money in your next car rental is to use websites to compare prices, they work with the most important companies and have important discounts...
an example is 66rentacar.com

Dagliago

Hello - Our flight arrives in France at 9.40hrs and leaves one week later at 13.25hrs. I thought I would book a car for 7 days from, say, 10.15 on arrival to 12.15 before departure - except that's actually 7 days and 2 hours, and every comparison site I've looked at so far treats that as 8 days! Even reducing the extra time to 1 hour it still gets charged as 24. Is there any way around this other than leaving the airport very late when arriving, and getting back there very early when flying home?

Thanks.