Car hire fuel policy should be stopped!

Bengt

Hertz in Spain runs full/full except when renting through Ryanair website. I rent from Hertz appr 5 times a year, mainly in Girona and Barcelona airports and normally I do not have a problem with full/empty as I drive 700 km per rental. But Hertz works out Ok...

Finchy_Lad

I have just got back from Spain and booked a car through Argus Car hire for five days. I was quoted 60 Euros on the internet. When I arrived at Alicante I was charged 78 Euros for the full tank of petrol and 5 Euros for the upgrade with Goldcar rental, which I didn't ask for. Who could say that the people who hired the car before me returned it empty therefore needing the tank to be filled up? Or did they return it half empty but Goldcar charged me for a full tank anyway, at a premium price? They also charge 15 Euros on top for filling it up! Also, you are asked to sign for the agreement without even seeing what you're being charged for anyway.
I'm no soft touch, but when you arrive at the airport and just want to get to your destination and haven't booked anything else, you really don't have a choice but to take the car.
I feel it was a complete and utter rip-off. Argus e-mailed me with a feedback form and I requested they ring me to discuss the issues, but they haven't bothered doing this.
THINK LONG AND HARD BEFORE HIRING A CAR!:mad:

thehobbit

I think California is the only place ive been where its better to take the fuel option.
Its much cheaper than filling up down the road for $4 a gallon.

joerugby

The "full/empty" policy has been adopted by many no-frills rental operators who seem to have have learned their tricks from Michael O'Leary. It enables them to offer very low headline prices and win lots of business.

We paid £7 per day for car hire in tenerife this year with Goldcar. Despite paying extra for a full tank of fuel, an upgrade and a second driver it was still considerably cheaper than the Hertz headline price. I don't feel I was ripped off, but then I did read the t&cs.

Caveat emptor.

gregg1

PolishBigSpender wrote: »

It's not a ripoff. As always on these boards, if something is said to be a ripoff, it rarely is - and in this case, it isn't. You don't have to hire a car!

How do you know they don't need a car?

FYI - just because something is in the terms and conditions does not mean it is not a rip off!

MarkyMarkD

As joerugby correctly points out, simply because a total cost is split in a different way by one hire car operator than another doesn't make one operator's charges or policies "a rip off".

Car hire prices have been pushed into the ground mainly because of the involvement of price-based intermediaries. These intermediaries win the business from customers by offering the lowest possible headline price, and they can only do this by paying next to nothing to the hire car operators. In turn, the only way the hire car operators can make money is through add-ons - like mark-ups on insurance, like high insurance excesses (in some cases) and through profit-making fuel policies.

It is arguable whether consumers get a better deal now than they did before the pressure down on headline rates due to the intermediaries.

Bogtrotter

Bengt wrote: »

Hertz in Spain runs full/full except when renting through Ryanair website. I rent from Hertz appr 5 times a year, mainly in Girona and Barcelona airports and normally I do not have a problem with full/empty as I drive 700 km per rental. But Hertz works out Ok...

Is this just Hertz Spain - Ryanair or a general Hertz - Ryanair thing now?

When I fly to France I generally hire a car mainly for transport to/from airport and popping to the local supermarche for provisions. Usually only use €20-€30 of fuel a trip so it will make car hire through the Ryanair website by far the more expensive option if they're on a Full-Empty policy.

I hired with Hertz in France last year through the Ryanair site and was Full-Full. Can anyone confirm if its still the same in France?

In fact my last trip coincided with the pension protests and most petrol stations ran out of fuel and those that didn't were rationing. Returned the car 5 litres short of full and the nice Hertz customer rep let me off.

peddy

I just got a quote from Alamo using Kayak for our holiday car hire in Valencia. £220 for 15 days and it states they have a full/full policy

flashf

Rented a small car in June for two weeks. On pick-up, not only did I have to pay for a full tank of petrol, but because i declared that I had one of those annual excess policies to cover any mishaps, they took over 800 euros from my credit card in case of accident. It was refunded when I returned the car two weeks later, but in the meantime I'd had to pay that extra charge on my monthly cc statement, and who knows whether I lost out on the exchange rate deal.

I also returned it with quarter of a tank left in, without refund of course. I felt like I'd been mugged!

thetaxwoman

We've just returned from Mallorca. Booked a ford Focus (or equivalent) from Centauro via Holiday Autos, because we got a great deal on the hire cost. Having read the small print, we expected to pay for a full-empty fuel policy and to be pressured to take out extra insurance (we'd already bought a cheap "extras" policy for £22 from WorldWideInsure instead of the £58 that the equivalent Holiday Autos policy would have cost). We'd also read some iffy reviews of Centauro, mostly to do with them being off-site, so were prepared for the worst.
However, the whole experience actually exceeded our expectations. The Centauro shuttle bus was waiting for us, the paperwork was dealt with quickly, additional insurance wasn't even mentioned, and they explained that they operate a full-full policy and even gave us directions to a petrol station close by. The car, an Astra, was in excellent condition and low-mileage, and returning it was equally straightforward. We had no problems at all before, during and after the hire. We were very pleased, and wouldn't it be great if we could say that of every company!

Oh, and although they swiped the credit card in case of an accident, nothing has been taken off it.