UKC

Going to El Chorro in March and looking to rent a car. Has anyone been and done the same and found a good deal?

I have been searching and it seems so difficult to compare like for like offers. There are some deals that just seem too cheap to be true such as doyouspain.com which quoted us about £50 for 13 days.

Has anyone used them before?

After googling them it seems like there will be lots of added hidden costs.

Anyone recommendations of a decent company, that is trustworthy and not too expensive?

Thanks in advance to the wisdom of the UKC massive

Leo

In reply to leroybrown:

Havent used the doyouspain company but i have had no problems in using goldcar over the last five years and around 8 visits to spain, prices are quite cheap right now, the only thing you need to watch out for is that they charge you for a full tank of fuel on top of the initial charge when you arrive, but you then bring it back with as empty a tank as you dare..

In reply to fatbuoybazza:


It is worth bearing in mind that unless you are going to do a lot of driving around, this works out as quite a significant additional cost. We went for a week, staying in Abdalajis, and climbing at chorro itself and desplomilandia, plus a bit of driving to shops and a couple of return trips to Malaga (to drop people to the airport) and we used nothing like a full tank of fuel.

In reply to leroybrown:

Hi Leo

I'm guessing "doyouspain" is a broker, like a lot of the sites out there. If your main concern is price, that £50 is very good. However it may involve a short minibus ride to the car hire office (as apose to the bigger companies which are in the arrivals hall).

Whoever you go with: There are quite a few pitfalls with car hire at Malaga:

-Full out empty back fuel policies (with fuel charged at around 110-150% of the going rate). i.e. expect to have 40-80EUR to pay when you arrive.

-Added insurance (some companies pretty much force you to take this out - giving the impression it's mandatory - it isn't). However it is probably worth having, given that things like punctures, clutch, wing-mirrors undercarrage, all have excessive excess to pay without it.

-Cash handling fee (be sure to pay in EUR to avoid this -usually 2-5%)

I went with GoldCar last time (as convience/avoiding delay at the airport was important as I was only there for a few days. I paid 30EUR extra for epress/priority pick up (10 minutes wait vs 1-2hrs in the normal queue this seemed similar for the other companies in the arrivals hall).

In reply to leroybrown:
I was recently charged, in Malaga, 92eu for a tank of diesel on a 'take it full, bring it back empty'. Also as I didn't take out the additional insurance cover (6eu per day) I had to PAY an 800eu deposit. Got the deposit back but with transaction charges etc what started out as a quoted £48 deal actually probably cost me in the region of £155 including a tank of fuel. So watch out for the small print! Especially on a £50 for 13 days deal!

In reply to leroybrown: i am in gib, hired from malaga, 14gbp for 3days. I used auto-europe to book but at mLaga it was niva, no problems, on airport. I paid 6eu per day extra locally to save a large deposit for tyre/windscreen cover. The car has done 62000miles so that is why they are cheaper than the big operators new cars

In reply to Quiddity: were there for 11 days so will have no problem using the full tank. The major issue we are coming across now is that they all want a credit card. Are there are companies who don't require this? Neither of us have or want to get a credit card! It really shouldn't be this difficult!

In reply to leroybrown:

The Airport website has a list of the companies who operate there:

http://www.malagaairport.eu/carhire.php (the bigger more expensive companires are more likely to no require a credit card). Alternatively look at your flight confirmation details, and there's usually an option to book through the airline.

In reply to leroybrown: cheers guys might just go through easy jet then!

In reply to mmmhumous:

Have you really had to wait 1 - 2 hours to collect a car, in 30+ years I have never had to wait for more than about 10 mins.


Chris

In reply to leroybrown:

With regard to my last post, if you 'go with EasyJet' - a lot of folks on the same flight will be heading to the same desk as you.


Chris

In reply to Chris Craggs:

Longest I've ever waited is about 25 mins, but the none-priority queue at a malaga had 10-20 groups in it, and they were taking 5-10mins per group to get them out the door.

In reply to leroybrown:

A group of 4 of use recently flew to Malaga and hired from malagacars. I can check exactly how much when I'm home, but it was roughly £180-£190 for a Citroen C3 for 11 or 12 days, including FULLY comp insurance. Between 4 of us this was fine, and included half a tank of fuel, and free 2nd driver. Stupidly I filled up the tank (having previously been to Costa Blanca where everything was miles away) which meant I gave them more than half the tank back without refund, but my own fault.

In Costa we rented a Berlingo, which I TRASHED, not intentionally, but we got stuck down a dirt road which I had some struggle getting back up! The fully comp for that was about £60-70 for 2 weeks and they were fine with the damage (borderline written off with the under car/ chassis damage)

Word of warning with malagacars, the car had a lot of scratches on it, so I took some photos back into the office to ask the guy to sign them off, and he laughed in my face, seriously amused, and said "You've bought the fully comp insurance! It's not YOUR problem", and refused to come out and look, he didn't care; heavily implying it would be the next dude's problem that didn't buy the full insurance. Additionally, you get picked up in a van to be taken off the airport, but it's not far, and after dropping it back off I jogged it back to the airport in under a minute, so don't be scared by that. In all I think a good service, providing you buy insurance, and cheaper than the rest.

Having said all that, depending on where you stay, where you wanna go, a car isn't a must, but it is a good luxury.

In reply to Tin:

Forgot to say, in Costa Blanca we rented from Goldcar. Again, a good service but this time they were more expensive.

The C3 we got this time was fine on most roads, with 4 blokes + stuff. On the 1 occasion when we fitting a cheeky Portugese chap in with us, we bottomed out on most bumps, not surprisingly. The car was also seriously under powered, we had to give it a few pushes on a couple of occasions, but for the price it was absolutely fine.