You told us you were sick of facing extra car hire charges at the pick-up desk and not getting refunds for fuel you’d paid for upfront but didn’t use. Here are the car hire firms that have changed after our calls for action.
Over the last eight weeks we’ve been working with the Spanish consumer organisation OCU to take on unfair car hire fuel policies in Spain. We both think that car hire companies should offer a full-full fuel policy by default.
Since we launched the campaign alongside OCU, we’ve been talking to car hire companies asking them to justify their policies and change unfair practices. Here’s where each of them are at…
The top performers
Alamo, AutoReisen, Enterprise, Europcar and Hertz offered full-full as default in Spain before we launched our campaign. However, Alamo has said it will now drop it’s full-empty policy in Portugal, which it says was the only place left to change.
Avis has launched a whole new website that’s much clearer than before – you can now clearly see you’re on a full-full policy when you book.
Cruising along
Budget has updated its website to offer a full-full policy in mainland Spain, but we’ve still got some work to do to convince the car hire company to offer the same in the Canary Islands.
In the slow lane
Unfortunately we think Firefly, InterRent and Goldcar need to do better. They still offer full-empty fuel policies, meaning customers could face additional fees on collection that were not made clear during the booking process. We’ll be writing to them to remind them of their legal obligations.
It’s a mixed picture, but car hire companies are starting to get on board. Have you had a car hire hassle? Share your story to help us uncover and tackle shoddy holiday practices. And if you’ve had car hire problems, our Consumer Rights site can help you solve them.