car hire rip off getting worse,,, Unless you book direct?

promptish

Hi,  We have been using car hire agencies abroad over the years and they are getting really bad  [rip off] Seems that using an agency to book leads to all the problems especially with the insurance.

I found a company centauro that covers europe and booking direct with them,for a couple of hundred £ you get all inclusive including full cover no excess insurance. Reading their reviews on trust pilot they have lots of bad reviews,but that is from the customers who used an agent.  The direct customers sailed through the booking and were treated well.

What's your thoughts ?

vacheron

Whenever I hire a car abroad I just buy insurance excess cover (usually Leisureguard are the cheapest, MSE have had a 20% off link for years). It only costs about £20 quid and shuts the hire care agents up as soon as they start their inevitable hard sell for their overpriced additional insurance!

You do have to have enough limit on your credit card to cover the excess hold they will place on it (which could be up to £1000), but I have done this at least 10 times, and never had a problem.

I also had to claim on the Leisureguard policy once when the hire company identified £600 of underbody damage (something fell off a lorry in front of us and we ran over it) and they paid out without issue. 

ellenvan

We use Zest and through them have used Centauro in Málaga.
You have the back up of Zest if anything goes wrong.
Centauro- take plenty of pictures of the car before leaving the depot.
Also make sure the key works. Once we just pointed the remote and zapped it.
On return they pointed out something stuck in the lock. Must have been there when we picked up. Zest sorted it  out for us.

HedgehogRulez

vacheron said:

Whenever I hire a car abroad I just buy insurance excess cover (usually Leisureguard are the cheapest, MSE have had a 20% off link for years). It only costs about £20 quid and shuts the hire care agents up as soon as they start their inevitable hard sell for their overpriced additional insurance!

You do have to have enough limit on your credit card to cover the excess hold they will place on it (which could be up to £1000), but I have done this at least 10 times, and never had a problem.

I also had to claim on the Leisureguard policy once when the hire company identified £600 of underbody damage (something fell off a lorry in front of us and we ran over it) and they paid out without issue. 

What if the car hire place refuses to accept your credit card?

vacheron

HedgehogRulez said:

vacheron said:

Whenever I hire a car abroad I just buy insurance excess cover (usually Leisureguard are the cheapest, MSE have had a 20% off link for years). It only costs about £20 quid and shuts the hire care agents up as soon as they start their inevitable hard sell for their overpriced additional insurance!

You do have to have enough limit on your credit card to cover the excess hold they will place on it (which could be up to £1000), but I have done this at least 10 times, and never had a problem.

I also had to claim on the Leisureguard policy once when the hire company identified £600 of underbody damage (something fell off a lorry in front of us and we ran over it) and they paid out without issue. 

What if the car hire place refuses to accept your credit card?

I have never had my card refused once in the 10-20 times I have booked overseas hire cars, but regardless I always have at least 3 cards with me: 2 specific overseas spending cards and my usual UK card, so I wouldn't consider this as anything to be unduly concerned about.