Holiday Autos Car Hire No Refund

ColmCC

Hello All,

Fisrtly I acknowledge I'm an idiot!  I forgot my entire purse during a recent week holiday to the French Alps and had to use Apple Pay all week on my phone.  It meant Europ car (booked through Holiday Autos) would not let me have the car I had booked for £423 in Geneva because I had no physical credit card.  That's fair enough, it clearly states I needed it.  However I thought I would get some sort of refund less admin fee as the car was not used at all.  A rather expensive loss for nothing at all!  Does his sound standard?  

Westin

I would say that was standard (no refund if car not collected) on a rental via a car broker.  The cheaper rates are often conditional.  Have you looked over your reservation paperwork regarding refunds?

ButterCheese

Yes I also had this with Enterprise in this country, booking direct with them.  I had booked it for 1 day only, but our house move fell through that morning, they were very nice about it but still said they had to charge me £120 for the full booking.  There is a clause that cancellations must be given at least 24 hours in advance, else you pay the full booking.  If you didn't cancel it beforehand in line with their terms (and I assume it was "cancelled" when you turned up with no card) then I'd say that was standard yes. 

DullGreyGuy

The chances of them hiring it out to someone else on the same day is slim, most the cost of the business is overheads like finance payments, insurance etc all of which they'd still have to pay despite you not using the vehicle. The actual depreciation caused by adding mileage is tiny and most likely off set by the loss of opportunity to charge you for late return, minor damage caused etc etc

martindow

The OP's hire was presumably for a week, so it seems a bit steep to charge for the entire period.  They may well be unable to rent it out on the first day, but for the subsequent days they knew in advance that the car was free.  Often hotel reservations that are cancelled at the last minute or not taken up at all incur a charge for just one night .

What does the paperwork involved say about failure to collect the car?

DullGreyGuy

martindow said:

The OP's hire was presumably for a week, so it seems a bit steep to charge for the entire period.  They may well be unable to rent it out on the first day, but for the subsequent days they knew in advance that the car was free.  Often hotel reservations that are cancelled at the last minute or not taken up at all incur a charge for just one night .

What does the paperwork involved say about failure to collect the car?

Very few hire car companies have all cars hired all the time, most manage a 70-80% utilisation if they are doing really well. So it's not just if they manage to give the car to someone else, but if they give the car to someone else which they otherwise wouldn't have been able to sell to. 

ColmCC

Thank you all so much for your comments.  Sounds like its a lost cause:(  I will double check the paperwork though Martindow.