A holiday should be a relaxing time away from the stresses of everyday life. But for some their holiday starts with unexpected stress and expense at the hire car collection desk. Sound familiar?
We’ve written before about the tricks of the car hire trade: damage charges, excess waiver fees and fuel options; and you didn’t hold back with your stories of being ripped off. Eric told us:
‘I rented a car on the net at a quoted cost of £88 for 7 days. When I got to the airport they loaded me with another charge of £100 for a full tank of petrol in case I returned the car empty (which would of course be impossible?)’
Chris said:
‘A couple of years ago I booked a car with “Zero Excess”. On picking up the car I was told that “Zero Excess” did not cover tires or the windscreen and if I wanted to cover those there was a 60 Euro additional insurance that I needed to pay.
‘Like many people with tired/excited children who just want to get out of the airport and on the way to the pool my ability to push-back was limited so I ended up paying for the peace of mind.’
Your car hire stories
Spain is the most popular foreign destination for British holidaymakers, with 13 million people flocking to the Spanish sun each year. So we’ve been working with our colleagues in Madrid at the Spanish consumer body Organización de Consumidores y Usuarios (OCU) to plan what we can do to stop British holidaymakers getting ripped off when they should be relaxing.
OCU are particularly concerned by full-empty fuel policies where you have to return the car empty or face wasting fuel you had to pay for upfront. M agrees:
‘Why do the hire contracts allow them to impose charges for fuel that might be due, rather than for fuel actually used?’
Have you been caught out by this car hire trick or any others? Tell us what happened and your story might help us with a new campaign…
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