Car Hire in France - Free Cancellation or Not?

Kayfersmum

Hi clever peeps in my phone,

If you were making a booking for car hire and these were the terms that came up when you made the booking online (screenshot attached), would you assume you could cancel the booking Free of Charge? 

We only ever book car hire with free cancellation and very rarely do we need to cancel a trip.  Unfortunately we are unable to make this trip next year and when we emailed the car hire company to cancel and request a refund, they are saying "it is quite clear that we offer free cancellation and facility to move your booking to new dates, not to be confused with "free cancellation and refund"  

We don't believe this is clear and are wondering if we should explore a dispute for refund via Amex or move the booking to another date the following year?

Thanks in advance for reading.
Sam

Brie

I would have assumed that the first "free cancellation" meant just that but the latter bit about registering for the "buggs" offer does make it sound like it's not cancellation that is free but changing your arrangements for free.  Which is not cancellation! 

Personally it looks like they are trying to bait you with the "free cancellation" and then hide the conditions in the later T&Cs.  

zagfles

It sounds like they don't understand what "cancellation" means, or their terms are deliberately misleading. Amendments are not cancellations. I'd demand a refund and if they don't provide it ask Amex for a chargeback.