UKC

Car hire seems to have become more complicated recently, and having got stung by Gold Car (thankfully not in the long run but didn't like the 'airport' blackmail.) I'm keen for it not to happen again.

Anyone have a good understanding of what you do and don't need to pay for these days?

- Historically you hired a car, paid a small (ish) deposit, and you could pay to have the insurance excess removed if you wanted.

- Now you have an option on the website when you book. Then the website company rings you up and tries to sell you insurance. Then the car hire company say that they are separate from the website company and that you need to pay for insurance with them, or they will claim from you and you have to claim from the website company etc.

- Additionally the standard excess seems to have gone to crazy levels (Gold car reeled off a list of minimum charges of hundreds of pounds for various problems), and you seem to have one charge to reduce the excess to reasonable levels and a further charge if you want no excess.
At no point is it clear what is reasonable and what isn't!!

- If you don't pay for extra insurance they take a multiple thousand pound deposit off your card - which they actually take and then pay back several weeks later, rather than just authorising.

WTF is going on?!

Can anyone explain please?

In reply to ClimberEd:
I just use hertz and whilst at first glance it seems more pricey that goldcar et al, you don't get any of this crap. It's the same as it always was. Get a car with a full tank, return it full. I have an annual policy for excess insurance but not needed that yet. Not had a single issue with them in multiple hires in Spain mainly. Normally works out about 75quid for a week plus fuel.

In reply to ClimberEd:

My experience is:

1) It's cheaper to get independent excess insurance than to get scammed by the car company, you can get annual policies online for about £30

2) This does mean they will authorise your card for a largish deposit; in my experience with the big/"reputable" (?) companies this has only been a pre-authorisation. Is it the more scammy ones that actually charge the card?

Not sure if that helps at all...

In reply to ClimberEd:

I just used DoYouSpain to book a car through local Reus company Firefly rentals, I bought insurance with DoYouSpain when I booked and the lady at the collection desk was happy with that. The hire was nearly half what anyone else was charging so I was expecting a big 'tax/fuel/admin etc' cost on collection to balance things out but in reality it was about £60 extra after they refunded the fuel left in the car (full-empty hire I suppose), this was on a 12 day rental of a people carrier that cost under £300, other companies wanted at least 5 or 6 hundred pounds.
They also only 'blocked' 850 euros deposit from my card which was unblocked a couple of days after we came home, couldn't fault the whole thing really (apart from ending up with a horrible Toyota Verso which in my mind is pretty loosely 'similar' to the Ford Galaxy pictured on the site!)

In reply to snoop6060:

Thanks for the replies, seems that I'm not misunderstanding that a change has taken place

I'll have a look at various insurance options then.

In reply to ClimberEd:

The advantage, for a bit of balance, of taking the pricey on the day insurance from the hire company themselves is that if you damage the car they will just take it back off you with no hassle at all in most cases.

If you have outside insurance, you need to do a lot of faffing that you may not have time for, then pay the full cost and manage the claim yourself, which if you got things wrong could be denied.

In reply to ClimberEd:

I used Dickmann Car Hire at Valencia airport, and took out my own CDW insurance in advance from a UK 3rd party. Dickmann stuck 950 euro security on my credit card, which proved easier to take than give back. After a month of delaying emails from them, I had to initiate a Charge Back claim via my card issuer who dealt with the case very swiftly & efficiently.

In short, I'd strongly recommend not using Dickmann. A friend however had used them a month earlier than me and had no issues getting the deposit returned straight away.

In short, it's pot luck I'm afraid!

Edit: on the plus side, they were very cheap for the actual hire charge - 70-ish euros for 18 days for a Seat Leon estate, which I thought was very reasonable.

In reply to snoop6060:

Seems quite variable, depending on the agent you get.

My sister had a run-in with Hertz when she hired a car in Australia 18 months ago and hit a kangaroo. She'd asked for full insurance, but the agent had mucked up and not added it on, leaving them to take quite a large sum off her credit card for the damage. She had the card company stop the payment and it took months to get resolved.

They were also hopeless about sending anyone out to check the damage and arrange a replacement vehicle, etc, causing quite a delay in her trip.

Double annoying, as she works for Enterprise (we get a family rate with them), but they don't have any operation in Australia.

We were also out there and hired from Hertz, as one of the few places that had offices where we wanted to hire and drop off - I had excess insurance from a UK company, but fortunately didn't need to test it.

In one office, the agent decided my baby daughter was so cute she wouldn't charge us for a car seat for her

As for UK 3rd party insurance I had a bit of trouble claiming. Often I go just for a weekend to climb in Spain or ski in Alps. And rent a lot. So originally idea of having insurance for a year reasonably cheap sounded good. Until I had to claim.

First of all it requires a lot of paperwork. Even if it's a scratch on the door from skis I was charged £50. Then I hit a pothole and got a flat I had to get local police to put report together.

Second it will take awhile for them to process the claim. In my case it was from 4 weeks to nearly half of the year (I took them to court for that one).

Third thing is that you will pay to car rental and only get money last thing in the process. So it's possible to end up with £600 missing for quite a while.

Oh and normally they have a limit on how many time you can actually claim per year.

P.S.: I know, I am careless driver and love to crash rentals.

In reply to nutme:

Which 3rd party insurance did you use? Will avoid them when I renew my annual one soon.