Hertz charging practice... avoid booking directly at all cost, or it will cost...

TheGermanOnTheForum

I probably should have consulted the forum for some similar experiences with Hertz before directly booking with them for a week's car hire in Italy.
As with others who posted earlier, the originally quoted sum of 178GBP which compared favourably against the brokers on return amounted to 280 Euros in the end, due to obscure taxes and other tricks that had not been explicitly stated (and I don't consider myself stupid or naive).

What was truly infuriating however is that the agent did not even ask but charged the full outstanding fee at an abysmal conversion rate and added commission in GBP! When challenged and insisting on paying in Euros he claimed that since the booking had been done in the UK, he would have to charge in Euros and this could not be done. I phoned the bank today and found that even their rate on the credit card would have been just over £5 less for the same amount of Euros. I don't expect a complaint to Hertz will have any result.

We regularly hire cars, mainly in Germany and Italy, but normally always via Prepay-Brokers such as Auto Europe and Ebookers. There has never been any problem like this in over a decade, and I can only warn anyone against hiring directly via Hertz.

Not to mention that the car had some technical faults as well (some lights weren't working, window washing was on empty), Hertz left me quite disappointed and certainly made me avoid them in the future, even via brokers.

Dave_Z

I always make sure i book a rate that includes all taxes, fees and applicable insurance. These are normally quite clearly stated when booking. Used Europcar, Enterprise, Dollar, Thrifty and National and never had any charges i didn't expect.

benjus

Perhaps it was dodgy local branch of Hertz... a complaint to head office would be worthwhile. I don't know who's at fault with the extra taxes etc, but you should never have Dynamic Currency Conversion forced on you so it sounds like you have a legitimate complaint there.

I have booked directly with Hertz several times because I'm a member of their car club in London (Connect By Hertz) and get a 20% discount on standard Hertz rentals. I've always found them very good and they have never tried to charge me more than they should have.

Donnie

Have to agree with benjus. We have booked directly with Hertz and taken out separate car hire excess insurance. No problems at all.

kr15snw

We've booked via the Hertz website for 3 weeks hire in Australia. Should I be concerned?

It did say an 'estimated cost' but said this was unlikely to change.

Donnie

kr15snw wrote: »

We've booked via the Hertz website for 3 weeks hire in Australia. Should I be concerned?

It did say an 'estimated cost' but said this was unlikely to change.

Make sure that you have Car Hire Excess Insurance.