UKC

I'm off to the Blanca in mid April and am doing the usual search for cheap car hire using the usual online options. 

To my mighty suspicion, sites like Skyscanner.net & travelsupermarket.com are returning options to hire a small car for about £1 a day - or less than £8 for my 5 day trip. I was expecting around £70. 

Is something going very odd here? Or is there a catch? I've use Goldcar before and now they're saying i can rent a 2-3 door car for £0.91 per day.....? The old saying "if it sounds  too good to be true, it probably is" comes to mind. Baffled! Anyone got any advice / experience of this? Thanks......

In reply to Phil Murray:

I hired a car for £20.91 for a fortnight in December.  Like you I was suspicious and checked and double checked the wording but it all seemed genuine and worked out OK with no issues either before during or after.

Al

In reply to GridNorth:

Thanks Al - I used Europecar before, but this time they're £110 (6 days), so sod that - I know some car hire places are well outside the airport but would prefer one inside -eg. GoldCar. Which one did you use (for £20) - cheers.

Well ... looks like it is good news, then.....! 

In reply to Phil Murray:

Don't go with Gold car, I had trouble with them and know many other have too. And there's usually a queue.

 

I've hired off airport before and it's not much more hassle, they come and pick you up and drop you off, depends of flight times etc.

In reply to krikoman:

thanks - Yep - I remember the past 2 years, there's been a long queue at Gold Car, whereas we were with Europcar & there was no queue! I'd definitely use Europcar again, but as I said, it's now £110 for 6 days - for a Fiat 500! Weird....... yet other companies are ludicrously cheap. 

In reply to Phil Murray:

We got ripped off royally at Palma by Europcar. It was my fault for trusting them and for ticking all the boxes as we were in a hurry to get out of the airport. We were hooked by a cheap quote from an online seller in Manchester and the eventual bill was almost double the quote. Shysters and thieves, all of them.

In reply to Phil Murray:

Lara cars. No hidden fees and extra drivers are no additional cost plus no queuing collecting or dropping off the car  

In reply to Phil Murray:

Last time I used "Record" I think, but it was while ago, so don't take my word or memory for it.

I always look for full to full on petrol, which I think gives a reasonable overview of the company, neither too cheap or too expensive, but "normal".

It's a minefield though, my mates have used Gold car and not had any trouble, though they do sting you with the insurance.

In reply to Phil Murray:

Don't touch Goldcar with a bargepole - see previous threads on this subject

In reply to Trangia:

Yikes . Just seen this : http://goldcarcomplaints.com/

- but others say Goldcar may be better now. Having said that, the queues *were* dreadful (we were smug as with Europcar)  ...... looks like Lara cars are a good bet, though. Can't believe Europcar have gone through the roof on price! 

In reply to Phil Murray:

My highest price at Alicante is £175.

Cheapest is £6.24!

No problems with the cheapie at all but you must do your due dillegence re T&C’s.

Latest method of frightening you into buying their insurance appears to be “does your insurance cover you if the driver does not stop”.

They may have a point actually - worth checking?

 

In reply to Phil Murray:

Whatever you do don't book with Centauro they royally f*cked us over. Long story short they blocked our card at their desk forcing us to buy new very expensive insurance through them.

In reply to OllieBrkr:

I don’t really understand that. In a spirit of arming us all against this could you provide more detail please?

In reply to Phil Murray:

In the end I went with Europcar, as they're a partner of EasyJet and you get at least 30% off (this all popped up by good chance as I was doing Boarding cards today), so i got a VW Polo for £68 all in, including damage etc, for 5 nights / 6 days, which is fine - avoiding being pressured into buying insurance at pick up and also the GoldCar horrific queue! 

Any nightmares out there I'll be sure to say - this is my 3rd consecutive Europcar hire since Xmas 2015 so I guess I'm a regular now.  THanks to all for advice! 

In reply to Phil Murray:

Just back from Costa Blanca. Hired from Firefly and have done in the past. Always been good. Hired via doyouspain.com on a full to full basis. Was about £150 for the MONTH. They are on the airport which is better. Buy an insurance excess policythe UK before you go I use icarinsurance.com , for an annual policy with key replacement cover this year I paid £40 but would be cheaper for a shorter period,  you then have no need to except the hard sell expensive insurance they offer when collecting the car. Enjoy your trip  ... Jez 

 

In reply to Phil Murray:

Also had bad karma from Goldcar, have used Victoria a few times and found them good, off airport now but service fast and fine, as of a year ago, HTH.

In reply to nickh1964:

Lara car always stress free, full to full fuel, all excess covered, meet you off your flight so no queues. Not th cheapest but when you factor in the benefits great value for money. 

In reply to Phil Murray:

Goldcar ripped me off 12 months ago charging for damage that they had either blatantly made up or caused themselves. Do not touch them. this year Ive just used OK rentals. Very good indeed. They have a great return system where you pull up, a guy with iPad checks everything is fine then prints you a receipt on the spot to say so. Thus you head home with proof that they can't later charge you for something. they are off airport but transfer is v quick and simple. 

In reply to climberchristy:

Just got back from a week in Ibiza, using OK Rental.  Despite my initial preconceptions they were fine.  Car was a little worse for wear, lost of scratches and the odd dent which you were required to self-report (while things could go wrong here if you don't take your time, there was no one pressuring you and they signed off your report).  No up-selling pressure.  Drop off easy with car checked and signed off in your presence as opposed to after you left - which was my issue with Gold Car.   

Budget in Iceland were the best by along way, they told us in advance that they knew the roads weren't in great nick and showed you exactly what level of damage (small scratches, dents and chips) were acceptable.

In reply to Phil Murray:

As above; don’t use gold car. RIP off merchants, hidden ‘essential’ charges. Charge extortionate amount for fuel (more than double actual cost).

 

 

In reply to tom:

We used OK Rental in Alicante in November - the car we had was in good nick, they weren't too anal about its return condition, and a reasonable experience all round. Car hire for eight days was something like £35 for a Polo.

So I'm back from Spain/Alicante, & to close this off, Europcar (30% off with EasyJet flight), were great, no issues, no problems back at the airport, and no queue on arrival. We also had a free upgrade to a Peugeot Partner Tepee. GoldCar now have a huge desk .....& still a massive melee of people queuing up for their "cheapest" car hires. No thanks! I took out no extra insurance & had no charges (returned car full). I'll stick to Europcar - 3 years in a row used now,  and aforementioned 30% discount with EasyJet.  Trip was great too! Thanks for all the advice! 

In reply to Phil Murray:

I've just been ripped off by Record at Alicante. We got a very cheap deal with them via DoyouSpain.com but then found e when we got home that we had been charged 85 pounds extra cleaning fee. The small print in the terms and conditions says they may charge this of the car is returned with 'animal hairs, stickers or garbage etc'. It certainly didn't have any of the first 3 so what the 'etc' includes is anyone's guess. We'd had the car for a month so it obviously needed a wash and I suppose the footwells needed a vac out but but I've never had to pay for that before. 

I won't be using Record ever again!

In contrast I've often used gold at in the past with no problems!

 

In reply to Dave Musgrove:

I would challenge that through your credit card, they will ask them for proof of necessity for cleaning. Obviously better if you have taken photographs ,but even so it costs nothing to ring credit card company.

In reply to Jim 1003:

Thanks Jim, 

At the moment DoyouSpain.com as the agents are trying to negotiate on our behalf. However, the credit card co have asked us to get back in touch if we get no joy.

I'll report back.

In reply to Dave Musgrove:

Hi Dave - hope you're well  Oh no - sorry to hear that. we only had our car for 6 days so it was a bit of chalk dust in the boot & some crisps crumbs max.  the rest of the car was still immaculate. Good luck getting that £££ back...... i will definitely stock to Europcar when flying EasyJet , I think.  Gold car is very popular, we saw a lot of their hire cars around during our trip......

 

In reply to Dave Musgrove:

Very odd. I've used Record via DoYouSpain for extended trips to Calpe for years and always been delighted. Reasonable price, good service, no silly quibbles and  only once had a prob when a warning light came on. They sent a truck to pick it up and took me back to the airport to collect a replacement and knocked a day off the rental price for my inconvenience. Luckily it was drizzling so I missed nothing climbing-wise anyway

That said, you have to watch the mileage. Although it is unlimited you can only do 2,000km on any one car after which you have to change it or pay  an extortionate 1euro per km. Apparently this is to stop locals  who plan a long trip from hiring a car for the weekend and visiting Aunt Maria in San Sebastian (or so I was told). You can actually exceed 2,000km on a 6-8wk trip and as it's been a long rental they've upped it to 3,000km no problems. This Dec/Jan they wanted 16 euros to do it.

In reply to will909:

Second the shout for Lara Cars used them twice now and have been excellent both trips.

In reply to Phil Murray:

slight word of warning on Europcar booked via Easyjet. I had some complaints after hiring this way, and guess what, Europcar swore blind I had to follow up my complaint via Easyjet as I'd booked as part of booking the flight, and Easyjet swore blind that it was all down to Europcar and my contract was with them. I never did get any satisfactory response about my complaint.