Cheap Car Hire in Portugal Wanted

BLUEWKD

Oranjeboom wrote: »

did u find anyone cheap and reliable in the end? I am in the same boat, but looking for Lisbon.

I haven't found anything cheap and now it has gone up by another £40 since I checked originally.:(

Theshipscat

Biblus wrote: »

If my experience of economycarhire.com is anything to go by I wouldn't deal with them. Economycarhire.com states there are "no hidden extras".

I made a booking on 9 June for Portugal, had a mail back same day to say they would get back to me in 48 hrs. As I didn't hear from them I booked elsewhere. Had a mail from economy at the end of the day on 14 June confirming they had a car.

Told them they were too late. They tried to charge me £15 cancellation fee and £3 c/card fee for... what? Being tardy in their communications!

They said they had problems with contacting hire companies, but would let me off the 'cancellation' fee, however, I would have to pay a £3 c/card fee despite not having taken a credit payment from me.

They must have spent at least 15 mins on the daftest explanations for charging me £3.

I reminded them that £3 is not worth bad publicity. They want their £3 so here's some bad publicity.

Avoid companies that do not understand the cost-effectiveness of good customer relations. If they are that stupidly inflexible over £3 when things go wrong - as they admitted they had - you are going to get shafted when serious money is involved when things go wrong.

My jaw is still dropped as I write.

I couldn't agree more they refused to refund 30 euros for insurance I didn't need levied by the car supplier. I hire twelve cars a year, idiots.

Try Sixt look on line and them call them and ask for the same price, no fuel charges either.

Theshipscat

Holy hell! Portugal is booming expensive for cars! Maybe Sixt isn't such a good idea there. Good in Valencia though (sorry)!

BLUEWKD

I have managed to get cheap car hire by booking the car 3 days earlier than I wanted it. I have booked it for 30th June even though I do not want it until the 3rd July. I have checked with who I booked it with first and if I ring them on the 30th to say I have missed my flight and my new date of collection then it will be ok. I have saved £150 on the price by doing it this way.
Hopefully this will help others who are travelling the beginning of July as I assume the car hire prices jump up from the 1st July.

melb

can i please ask Theshipscat who sixt put you with at Valencia as I need to book a car there for August and it's sooooooooo expensive!

Theshipscat

melb wrote: »

can i please ask Theshipscat who sixt put you with at Valencia as I need to book a car there for August and it's sooooooooo expensive!

Sixt are the car rental company it's not an internet broker. Others you can try are Solmar. All the others apart from the likes of Avis charge for fuel. I really liked advantage which is part of Avis but they're becoming just like Gold Car and trying to con customers. I go there 10 times per year and it's the first time I've tried Sixt but they seem to be a straight up company.

Theshipscat

BLUEWKD wrote: »

I have managed to get cheap car hire by booking the car 3 days earlier than I wanted it. I have booked it for 30th June even though I do not want it until the 3rd July. I have checked with who I booked it with first and if I ring them on the 30th to say I have missed my flight and my new date of collection then it will be ok. I have saved £150 on the price by doing it this way.
Hopefully this will help others who are travelling the beginning of July as I assume the car hire prices jump up from the 1st July.

Well done I like the way you think.

bylromarha

Whatever you do don't go with fast car hire / fastcarhire

I booked with them 8th June 2010. I had an email 21 July 2010 saying my booking for 28th July 2010 was cancelled and nothing they could do and book elsewhere.

Ended up paying £200 more than fastcarhire quoted.

Most annoying thing is that my friend booked the same band of car from fastcarhire 5th July 2010 and their booking remained - obviously my friend brought more money to fastcarhire, so I was the one who got bumped.

cadgey

I agree - whatever you do, don't use fastcarhire! I just tried to use them for my 2 weeks in Croatia ....

I booked a Skoda Octavia at £827. Paid a deposit. Then they came back and said this car was unavailable, but a Skoda Octavia (?) was available, and to go back and confirm my booking. When I went to confirm it the price was £1111.

I cancelled the booking, and they then offered me a Golf for £880 - but when I looked on the web, it showed the price as £690. So I refused that.

They have now offered me a Golf for £770 - but the price on the web is now £667!

At no point have they answered my complaints about the disparity between the web pricing and what they are trying to charge.
I have requested the refund on my deposit, but am not confident that i will get it.

As a heavy internet shopper, I feel really let down over this and feel it is a classic con of showing a cheap price and then switching to a more expensive one.

I have actually lodged a complaint with the ASA over this for the first time ever!

I wish I had checked here first, having seen some of the posts!