Car Hire, Portugal,July Pay in advance???

tobyjug

Hi wanting to book car for 13 days in July from Lisbon airport. What is the current thinking behind paying upfront for car hire and paying a deposit and completing the balance when you get there.

Any potential problems with either method. have booked a car vis easy jet before and we just remember queues being really long, a huge excess threatened...

Any comments would be useful.

bfgun

tobyjug wrote: »

Hi wanting to book car for 13 days in July from Lisbon airport. What is the current thinking behind paying upfront for car hire and paying a deposit and completing the balance when you get there.

Any potential problems with either method. have booked a car vis easy jet before and we just remember queues being really long, a huge excess threatened...

Any comments would be useful.

Normally by paying in advance you will get a discount on the rate charged.

cubegame

Last summer lots of people on here got burned when their deposit only car hire in Spain was cancelled. The car hire companies realized they could put the price up and so claimed the agents had overbooked and cancelled loads of people when they got there!

IMO, it's always worth the security of paying in advance on credit card so at least if they pull a trick you have the backing of the credit card company.

As for excess, I always find not crashing the car is the best way to avoid this. Not stupidly overpriced (I include the annual policies in this) excess policies.

lagoslife

Paying a deposit to a 'reputable' company should be fine to secure the car. As mentioned, last year there were shortages of cars in Spain and Portugal due to companies reducing their fleets - credit crunch.

Don't leave it until the last minute.

pompeyrich

cubegame wrote: »

As for excess, I always find not crashing the car is the best way to avoid this. Not stupidly overpriced (I include the annual policies in this) excess policies.

Not all excess liability is down to your own actions though, any damage while the car is left unattended, a stone thrown up from the car in front, the window broken by a thief, tyre damage by that pothole, the list is endless. Following on from your comment why bother with car insurance at all if you are so good at avoiding incidents?

Max_1066

Separate excess insurance also covers you for other thing like tyres, glass and the undercarriage. I believe in Cyprus the local hire companies even try to get you to pay 'sump insurance'.

As mentioned above, one of the biggest risks is someone or something else damaging the car .... in a car park for example. Cars are so expensive to repair that you'll spend the excess on what seems like relatively minor damage. Hopefully it won't happen .... but you never know.

tobyjug

The trouble is the more I look the time I waste and now it has gone up...finally booked through Atlas car hire have had my travel insurance with them for the past couple of years and they seem good value for money their excess insurance also seems to be reasonable too.