UKC

Anyone used Inter Rent? Best quote for in terminal pickup and free additional driver, but the review score is a bit lower than others. Anyone used them recently?

Load of trouble last October, wanted a massive insurance uplift, and wouldn't accept our own excess cover.

Wiber was great, off site but really speedy, and not too expensive, full to full,  we went with full insurance cover though so about £200 for the week.

I've got a discount code somewhere if you go with them. I'll try and dig it out if you like. I don't know how much you save mind.

shit, just re-read OP we were at Alicante, so not sure about Malaga.

Thanks Krikoman, just the sort of info I was after. I'll probably go Centauro booked through Zest, the Zest full cover isn't too much.

We just used Europcar at Malaga booked via Easyjet.  Used them a few times now and very impressed at lack of hassle and zero hardsell of upgrade/insurance etc.

They accept your own excess insurance without a fuss.  (we use ReduceMyExcess).

If you trawl back through the many car hire threads there seem to be good & bad experiences with all the operators.

My own more recent experiences

Thrifty - probably the best overall, they are a sudsidiary of Hertz

Sixt - Pretty good but complicated system for reporting if the car has damage when you pick it up.

Europcar - Fine on several occasions then they tried to stiff me a fuel refill surcharge last time.

Record - No problem but they don't get good reviews

Centauro - Ditto

Goldcar - Ditto but probably get worst reviews

I've used Interrent a couple of times elsewhere - no problems other than they're essentially a reseller and you may end up with using an operator that's further away from your terminal than you'd like.

I've used Niza Cars for many years and never had any problems. They're based near the airport on the other side on the N-348 and offer a shuttle service both ways. I've always gone for the zero-excess insurance cover.

Same here. 

I have used interrent in the past, no problem.
BUT, I have booked a car full to full for 8 days at Malaga, for £7.53, with them which I pick up from Goldcar (NOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!) and I just feel doomed. BUT, other car hires are coming up at £20.00, 4x the cost, but I would feel doomed with them. Am I better just to be doomed at £7.53 that £20 or which company have you gone with?

I have seen this said before, my plan is, if there is hassle, phone Holiday Autos and get them to sort it, they do have an option when you phone "are you at the rental desk", i once did this via Auto Europe and they sorted rapido

I'm tempted to stick with Zest as their full excess cover is cheapish compared to holiday autos. That leaves me with Centauro, which I know is close to the airport. Total cost will be about £40.

Zest are pretty good and will sort any pickup problems asap. The only risk then is the dreaded hour long que to pick up(and we only land at 21:10)! Worst ever was a Brit before me who held us up half an hour because they didn't have the exact car he thought he'd reserved.

Why take the excess cover from any of them? You can get annual cover for less than that! If they refuse to recognise independent insurance then that's a sign that they should be avoided.

I have checked out zest, and I am possibly wrong, but I think they are just bundling the excess cover that I already have, in with the price. I suspect there are only a small number of excess insuteres , 2 or 3, and all providers use them, but market them differently.

It sounds like some are refusing to release the car, have a look at Krikomsns post up thread

Convenience, that's £40 total rental & insurance, including additional driver. Not bad IMO.

I don't know how much that is but I'll probs only rent 1 car this year.

Yeah, they are good if you don't have any other excess cover. Their price seems to be on par with independent excess cover, without the hassle of another online form, and there's no argument at pickup.

I got a great deal from Zurich (I think) - covers full excess in Europe for £45.00. No issues using it with all the major car hire companies (and some smaller off airport operations too). Did me proud the last year & I'm renewing it.

Be prepared for the following:

1. Will try to sell you fully comp insurance.

2. If you refuse this they will 'attempt' to take a hefty deposit on your credit card. They will tell you that the card isn't being accepted and refuse to hire without insurance, or,

3. They will not mention the hefty deposit, take a smaller one for fuel and give you a tablet to sign. They will then print off the hire agreement, in Spanish, and give this to you folded up. When you read it they will have charged you for insurance.

4. If, by some miracle, you get them to rent you a car without buying their insurance, they will find spurious damage and charge take this from your deposit.

I tried to avoid Goldcar after all the really bad reviews, so I like you found inter rent,  turns out it's Goldcar under a different name 

Watch out 

Just phoned Holiday Autos to cancel which they were happy to do, but asked me why, which is fair enough.
I explained my concerns vis a vis too cheap. They said we can get you another deal, I said I have used interrent many times.
They said okay, any hassle at the airport, ring them and hand the phone over and they will sort it. If they will not provide a car, holiday autos will get me a car at the agreed price.
I have had this scenario with Auto Europe and Firefly at Barcelona, and it worked well.

So far no one has done anything wrong other that offer me a car at very cheap price, lets give it a go and see what happens

I too was upset when my Interrent booking had me at the Goldcar desk at Alicante a year or two ago and facing the usual aggressive assistant doing his best to make me as unhappy as he evidently was. It turns out that Europcar, for whom Interrent was already a cheap brand, bought Goldcar. Thus I now avoid all three.

When I'd booked Interrent and found myself faced with the discomfort of the Goldcar desk I investigated and found that Interrent is and always has been a subsidiary of Europcar who bought Goldcar a year or two ago. I now avoid all 3 having had a bad time with Europcar in Corsica.

Hi the time before last, again  Alicante, we used Centro, they were rubbish, really slow, again you couldn't use your on excess insurance, they told us our credit cards were refused, when my mate rang the credit card company, they said they'd seen the transaction, but it hadn't been reused it had been cancelled!

I think though I'm not certain, Gold Car now own Centro or the other way around.

It's a nightmare renting a car in Spain, I dread it every time we go.

Good Luck.

Let us know how you get on

Hiya Steve. Never heard of Zest till now. Just went through their process and discovered they're ageist. Claim they can't get a car for over 65s. Which is bollox as the car they offered when I said I was only 60 was from an end supplier I use. Now 74, I've never, until now with Zest, been refused a rental in Europe, Morocco or N America, nor has there been any suggestion of extra charges.

Why are Ryanair so cheap? They try and get you with all the add ons they can. 
 

Why do a bunch of ridiculously cheap rental car companies with weird names come up top on rental car searches? Exactly the same reason as above. 
 

I always use well renowned rental car companies now, accountable companies with a reputation to protect. I don’t think cars are really something worth scrimping over, with Enterprise, Hertz, you pay what you comfortably think the car is worth, but driving off wondering how a company is making a profit when you’ve paid £7 per day to rent it will soon be made obvious to you. 

even more so when you've paid less than £7 per week (which was the cheapest rate on offer from Barcelona last time we were there)

Only a sample of one, but I have rented cars a lot from Alicante, and have never found Goldcar worse or better than the others. They have the big advantage for me that they don't insist you take the extra insurance if you are over 70, which most of the others do. 

 I've been renting cars from the big names and the local companies you refer to as 'weird' for about 25 years. I've had the worst experiences from the big names.

The cheap deals are a result of supply and demand. Us climbers go to Spain at a relatively quiet time of the year. The companies would rather the cars were out generating some income than sat in car parks costing them money.

I'm well aware aware of the pitfalls, hence the original post. Got the info I was after so thanks again to everyone for posting your experiences.

I'm reading this with interest because I've just booked hire car in Faro and have been reading reviews with trepidation. They all sound like they can be awkward to the point of fraudulent or really smooth depending on who you speak to! 

I've just read the T&Cs to make sure I get everything, and it seems that for all of them you HAVE to have a credit card for the security deposit if you have sorted your own insurance, I think this is where a lot of people fall down, and it has to be the same card you made the booking on.

Of course, this is no defence against them saying oo sorry the payment won't go through you'll have to pay for insurance with us etc., but that sounds really dodgy so hopefully that won't happen!

The last place we went in Spain was Centauro and I went around the car taking photos of every miniscule speck of a scratch with the woman and made her write it all down, then when I returned it all the guy did was check the fuel and then instantly refunded my deposit on his iPad! Seriously, the other side of the car could have been a wreck with the doors hanging off and he wouldn't have known! 

you need to make sure you check your credit card bills for a few months afterwards. They still have your card details and can apply extra charges as they see fit (for instance an admin fee if you get a speeding ticket). The car hire person checked the fuel gauge and OKed everything but a few weeks later I was charged 200 euros for a tank of petrol that was meant to have been free. They didn't bother to tell me and I only found out after it appeared on my card statement. It took several weeks of email exchanges before they admitted their mistake and refunded me.

Yeah I've seen this problem before.... people in front of me at the desk, holding everyone up! 

I've got a credit card I just use for holidays. It's always been fine for rental deposits, and I've always paid for the booking in advance on a different debit card.

If you use one of the UK brokers with a helpline, and you read the T&Cs, you shouldn't be in for any surprises. The only problem you can then have is an excessive wait at pick up time.... but to be honest I've had that with the international and local Spanish firms.

Yep. I watched a couple get done by this.

They had stand alone insurance. This obviously protected them against the cost of any repairs. It had no impact on the deposit required by the hire company which needed to be placed as a hold on their credit card.

They were unable to produce the card and have a large depot held against it. Consequently their options were to either buy the (un-needed in their opinion) CDW cover from the hire company or not get the car.

As the size of the deposits can be very large I can see how some people could have problems. Over new year a hire car company in Malta wanted a £1,500 hold on my credit card.

Yeah the company I'm going with needs 1950EUR and since it's blocked for your whole holiday you need to have enough credit to cover your holiday money as well (if you use a card with no foreign transactions fees, as I do). So I just asked the bank to increase my credit limit to give me some more breathing room above that.

In my case the car was on a full to full hire; I'd refilled it, the return guy checked it in ok but I then got a bill for approx 20 litres of fuel plus a surcharge of 23 euros.

When I challenged this with Europcar, they refunded without too much hassle.

Bit puzzled why people are complaining about hire companies putting a large excess on your credit card.

As far as I recall this has always been the case with any company I've used.

I,ve hired a lot of cars over the years in Europe and tried to adapt to all the potential scams but came across something new last year at Marseille airport (Hertz desk). On the way back to the airport I filled up the tank, but not very close to the airport as I didn't know it and wasn't sure if there was a station near/at the airport. The fuel dial still showed full when I returned the car which is what I usually aim for, with no problems. This time they wanted a receipt to prove I'd filled up near the airport! Within 10 km I think. Otherwise they were going to charge to top it up. As it happened I pleaded ignorance; I may  have been told this in French when I collected it but didn't catch it. This was a new one on me. She let me off.

It does tell you this in many (all?) rental contracts.
Consider here though who is the scammer,

1. the rental company who quite reasonably wants the tank back as full as they gave it the renter.
2. the renter who fills up 25 miles away and considers that as the gauge will not have moved, the rental company will not notice*.

* I am not putting you in this category.

It's never been an issue before....fuel dial reading full meant full tank. That seems a reasonable definition to me. What I've described was new to me. I've turned up at airports before and the fuel station I knew was there has been closed. Prepare for rental company refill charge...

We go several time a year and always use Helle Hollis. Not the cheapest but always good to deal with and have a fair fuel policy

When you pick the car up, how can you tell whether a fuel gauge reading full is actually full, or has 25 miles of travel used from it? Clearly you can't, so the same should apply when you drop it off.

I agree.

And the hire car company don't know either unless they themselves filled it to the brim after the last return. Even if you produce a receipt from a filler station close to the airport they still don't know how full you filled it. I suppose they could do some miles/km per gallon calculation over your hire period but that won't be that accurate anyway.

It was new to me; I feel that it's a new way of trying to squeeze some extra money out of you if they possibly can.  

I posted to warn other climbers/travellers of the issue in case they weren't aware.

There is a question of reasonableness here. If you arrive back with the car showing full and a receipt for a station within 10km, it is reasonable to assume the tank is full. When you pick up the car, if you know the hire company is taking these steps, you can reasonably assume the tank is full. To fill the car much beyond 10Km and present it as full is a bit unreasonable. 

So when taking away a car worth 10,000€ for a week at 22€ for the week, with 60€ of fuel in the tank, it is reasonable for the hire company to expect the renter to read the contract and stick to it, and not take the piss and fuel up 40km (25 miles) away.

In over 30 years of hiring holiday cars at airports, I've never had this one tried on me!

Just checked Eupocars (who we tend to use) T&Cs.

If you do over 60 miles in hire period, the gauge needs to show full on return, no proof of filling up required:

Their rules seem very fair & reasonable.

https://faq.europcar.co.uk/after-rental/do-i-need-to-return-the-car-with-a-...

Travelling more than 60 miles during your rental period:

If you return the vehicle full (fuel gauge shows full) no refuelling charges will be applied.

If the vehicle is not full (fuel gauge does not show full) you will be charged2 based on the closest missing 8th on the fuel gauge.

If more than 7 litres are calculated to be needed to refill the vehicle then an additional fixed surcharge of £18 will be charged.

My problem was that Europcar charged me when the car WAS returned full, I filled it absolutely to the brim less than 5k from the airport but was billed for approx 20 litres of fuel plus surcharge.

Fair enough they did refund the full amount when I challenged it.

I discovered that different suppliers define the minimum scratch size differently. I got caught out last year for a scratch of 1cm on the wheel hub. I wasn't certain I had caused it, as it was hard to spot. Nevertheless they were going to charge me. This was a company called global at Munich airport. I then asked the other rental companies in the hall, and their minimum scratch size was larger so I wouldn't have been charged. But Global stuck to their guns and said I could query it once they sent the paperwork.

In the end, I've seen no deduction from them on my credit card or any correspondence, so I haven't had a need to question the claim. They probably had too many 1cm damages to chase up.

What if you buy a petrol can, fill it up, local to the hire desk when you fill the tank for return, then at the return desk, take the petrol can to the tank and try to put some in until it is visibly about to overflow from the tank and let them witness this to confirm it is full.

Even if you filled up to the brim 25 miles away you will probably only just get the whole can in the tank, so long as it wasn't a thirsty car.

Perhaps film doing this on your phone for evidence ( or could that be dangerous? ..  ok, get your mate to film it from 10m away?).

Cost of can of petrol + can probably worth it, although perhaps will create unecessary xs plastic waste? 

Maybe ask if they have a spare can you can take on taking out hire?

Just be careful to watch out for charges on your credit card bill for disposal of the petrol can or hazardous / flammable substance storage charges, because they might not have anywhere to put what's left in the can?

Perhaps it invalidates your insurance if you drive the last 5 miles back carrying a full can of fuel in their hire car?