UKC

Thinking of heading out to Alicante in Jan for a spot of sunrock. Not been out for a while and wanted to know if there were any car hire companies to definitely avoid ( or any strong recommendations). 

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Avoid Goldcar.

People highly recommend Laracars.

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

SECOND THAT - AVOID GOLDCAR

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Just had a perfectly pleasant experience with Clickrent at Alicante (booked through link on Ryanair site after buying flight). No hassles at all

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

It doesn't matter who you get, but either get your own insurance (I use Questor) or just pay the extra for their full cover. Take photos of the car when you pick it up on your phone so they're timestamped. I've been had this year by 'reputable' companies such as Europcar so am very much going back to just picking the cheapest in the future. 

In reply to james1978:

Out of curiosity, why not Goldcar?

Just doing some holiday shopping and they seem half the price of the others...

In reply to spidermonkey09:

Europcar are one of the worst.  Absolute crooks.

In reply to spidermonkey09:

I've now adopted the practice of taking a video of the whole exterior of the car (including the wheels & tyres) on my phone - only takes a few seconds - ensures you don't miss anything.  Because the b***ards will try it on if they can.

In reply to 99ster:

I got a beater car from goldcar in Alicante, it was fine for what we needed but wasn't pretty. I also crashed one on Mallorca and they were really easy to deal with (replacement car same day).

In reply to Birks:

I stopped using them when they tried to charge me for a new windscreen with almost undetectable stone chips. Seems to be a common tactic to claim you damaged the car. To be fair they had been OK up until then, although there were often long queues at their  Alicante airport desk. I haven't been since Covid but Centauro were OK the last time I went.

In reply to 99ster:

This is the thing; everyone has had a bad experience with one or the other. They're all crooks. Hence my new approach of covering myself and just picking the cheapest.

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Record robbed us blind refusing to hand over the keys until we payed the extra( extra) insurance which we thought was already covered with our easy jet car reservation. They've been passing the parcel buck ever since we complained. They wouldn't take the usual credit card block 

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Just for a change, a cheery Alicante car hire story. Made the error of assuming the mirror was the most sticky out bit of the car, in Finestrat underground car park. It wasn't. All the panels down side scraped along the concrete. A real mess. On return, checklist produced. Oh there is a cross, ie previous scratch,  already against all those panels, so no charge, sir. Goldcar or Record, not sure. 

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Always used Centuro and found them excellent....

In reply to Birks:

Google 'Goldcar Reviews' to get a flavour of how they more than make up for the apparently cheap original 'quote'. I was done by them in Sardinia and wouldn't go near them again, having heard many other horror stories.

I normally use Centauro at Alicante and have not had a problem with them.

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

After doing a little research we opted for Victoria Cars and they were decent enough. They're not based at the airport but pick you up and take you to the base (maybe 10 mins away)....bit more reasonable and no issues. 

In reply to spidermonkey09:

PMSL, do you mean the customers.

1. Filling car 40 miles away, because it will still show full. Hence the insistence on a local fuel receipt.
2. Driving off road up bumpy lanes to crags.
3. Bringing the car back as filthy, looking like it has been rallied.
4. Dinging the car, and denying all knowledge.
5. Driving the car like it has been stolen, and just abusing it.

Being a Car Rental company must be like playing chess, every move they make, and the customer who wants the car for free, with anything more, is a set back.

The way the care hire companies and I believe Goldcar want to do business is you buy their insurance, where they actually make some money, and when you bring it back you will have no issues.

Oddly on these threads, I never Green Motion mentioned, who I have seen explicitly excluded on Car Excess policies.

I always want it cheap as possible, so use a consolidator like Auto Europe, who will stand my corner, read the small print when I hire, take excess insurance and wash the car and fill it up with juice within 10km of the Airport. And never use Goldcar

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Anyone know of a rental company in Alicante that'll take a debit card deposit? Got a credit card in the post but looks like it won't make it in time with the postal strikes.

In reply to remus:

For future reference centauro let you pay the deposit with a debit card.

In reply to Godwin:

Thats the first time I've ever heard it said that *car hire companies* are the victims. Tiny violins out!

In reply to spidermonkey09:

For balance I've had a good experience with Avis (Sardinia) and Hertz (Sicily).  And Firefly was OK in Spain. 
The worst was Europcar (Inverness - only used them because of the BMC discount) - they added the premium insurance over £35+ per day despite my refusing it, which only showed on the CC bill after we got home.  And then claimed I had asked for it at the airport & refused to refund it.  Absolute utter crooks.  I've heard similar stories from other people.
Another one to avoid in Italy is 'noleggiare'.  Added fake fuel costs + other made-up extra charges on to the credit card after we had got home some they couldn't be disputed!  Then the credit card was cloned in Italy (thankfully blocked by the bank) - and the only place we had used the card?  At 'noleggiare' of course.

And yes, the best insurance solution is to take out car hire excess insurance (very cheap for a week).
 

In reply to remus:

That is worth knowing as I don't have a credit card at the moment. 

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

We used this firm in March.  British family run company based near Alicante.  They were easy to deal with, helpful and flexible.  We had no hidden "extras".

https://www.edirentacar.com/

In reply to remus:

Expensive clarification on this is that you can only pay the deposit on debit card if you book directly through them. If you booked elsewhere then you need to pay for the full protection on top of the existing rental.

In reply to 99ster:

Did you report this to the BMC. I would expect the BMC to take some action, as they are tacitly encouraging members to use them.

In reply to Godwin:

You mean bending the front cross member, blowing the lower control arm, blowing the tyre out and destroying the rim, all repaired for €50 in a back street garage plus glueing the windscreen trim back with Evo-stick isn't normal? And a handfull of rags to clean the oil leak from the cracked sump for free

In reply to jimtitt:

Hmm, I have heard the Car Hire people in Agadair have some dodgy customers.

In reply to Janet Horrocks:Hi Janet, all a bit of a minefield on the car hire front. Last trip we had a dreadful experience at the Centauro desk at Alicante. Our booking was through Booking.com and we had paid for full cover via them. They say anything the hire company charges will be paid through that. The two staff at Centauro where both aggressive and intimidating telling us the cover we had was worthless and we had to take their full cover (€210 per car - we had 2). When we said we would use the insurance we had they were at the shouty stage and saying we would be charged for everything and wouldn’t get out money back. They were doing this with many of the bookings and a big queue built up which increased the pressure on the person negotiating at the desk. Eventually we disengaged and got away with our cars on the Bookings.com comp insurance. I think the issue is the 3rd party fully comp insurance and may be resolved with a  direct booking with the hire company and paying their fully comp - which seems to be less when paid in advance. Not sure though. Grim experience and my worst in more than 30 years of trips.

Two others with us had a different experience as their company (maybe Record) claimed no booking despite all the paperwork and then charged more for a new booking!

On the flip side, I’ve had many good experiences both taking 3rd party insurance or their own. It seems a bit of a lottery but most times it has been ok.

Good luck and have a great trip.

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

We used Firefly at Alicante in march, booked through holiday autos, using an annual insurance4carhire policy. No problems at the desk, with no pressure to take their insurance. Some of the pre-recorded damage seemed very minimal though, so we were very careful not to add more.

It seems to be common practice there to have to provide a receipt for fuel from a petrol station within 10k of the airport, to prove it has been fully refilled.

In reply to cragtyke: Sounds good. The garage about 1mile from the airport is 24hr. For those not in the know and approaching from the main motorway west of the airport, just continue passed the airport rather than pulling in and you come to it quickly. Easy to get back to the airport too. We had to handover our keys before filling up as they must have experienced drive offs.

In reply to Janet Horrocks:

Be wary if tempted to use DoYouSpain.

If they send you pages of terms and conditions do read all of them.

The business model appears to be, Hope you contravene any one of the t&cs then refuse to hire you the car. Followed by informing you that your chosen car hire wasn’t just a good price it was a Special Offer and in the t&cs all special offers are non refundable. They keep all the money.

In reply to Neil Morrison:

I had a very similar experience with Centauro. They also demanded that we return the car a fair chunk earlier than the booked time as it could be checked more thoroughly as we had had the audacity not to use their rip-off insurance. On return they quite literally crawled over the car with high power torches. On finding a farcically minor scratch which could have been polished out with a bit of wax they then proceeded to charge us 200 euro (which my stand alone insurance duly refunded me for in due course). Total rip off merchants. 

In reply to MartinL:

I’ve just cancelled with them, thankfully none of that happened, but I was well outside the penalty period.