BY GROUP TRAVEL EDITOR TIM HEGDLEY
FACT Nearly three quarters of holidaymakers felt they had been ripped-off by car hire companies in Spain as they ended up paying for fuel which they didn’t use, research has revealed.
Are a new Car Hire Company that show you the Good Guys in the Car Rental Market. And they are rated by Money Supermarket as well!
Last Christmas, I was one of those people who got turned over and yes it was in Spain. I booked on-line because of an amazing price offer and the ability to pay upfront for my “complete cover” insurance. I arrived in Malaga and was told “Sorry Sir, your insurance is not worth anything” is a common phrase that is said at the rental desk when you arrive and present your car hire excess policy.
How do other car hire companies do this insurance scam?
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Your insurance is not worth anything TO THEM.
When you take out an additional insurance or protection with a broker it does not effect the way the car rental company will deal with your rental.
Step back and try and see it from their point of view and you will see clearly why.
The way they scam you!
The car hire company’s job is to ensure that if you take a car away, the company is adequately covered for any damages that may happen when you have the car.
They have two ways of doing this.
- By swiping your credit card for the excess amount so that any damage can be taken from that card normally €600.00
- By selling you an their insurance that essentially buys out the excess and they then take the risk on you damaging the car.
So think back to when you were waving the voucher in his face and demanding that you should not do either of the above because you have an insurance bought from a company in the UK, can you now see why he says it means nothing to him?
Your insurance policy covers YOU and repays YOU for any loss of money associated with damage to the car hire, not the local company.
This means you must leave the excess and claim back the money if it is ever taken for damage.
With Car hire it’s human nature to want to get the best deal but sometimes you can buy the cheapest (as I did) and it ends up being more expensive and this is the main problem with car hire.
With the rise of comparison sites, customers are drawn to the cheapest, the promise of the best price and when faced with a number of other options they generally look the same; but they are not.
Compare sites, are good at helping you find the companies that sell the product you are looking for, are easily manipulated.
Some companies will do anything to be top of the “cheapest to most expensive” filter and the rewards for being the cheapest is a large number of customers coming to the website and hopefully a large number converting to sales.
Is this smart marketing? In a word; yes, is it customer friendly; no.
£20 Car, Trick or Treat?
A promise of a car for £20 a week on the proviso, you take a full tank of fuel and use it or else return it back with no refund is a common trick.
There are some advantages to the customer here, if they are able to play the system.
If you are using a full tank of fuel and intend on return it back empty then you will be quids in. While you may pay 20% more for the fuel in the beginning it outweighs the amount you will save on the car hire cost.
In most cases, however, are customers who intend to do little driving and are asked to pay for a full tank and then return it back with more than half a tank of fuel back.
While you have saved on the cost of the car hire you are out of pocket for the fuel, an average cost of a tank for a small vehicle is 80€.
The calculations are simple, the rental company make no money from you for the car hire itself, this is written off and the money they make comes from over pricing the fuel in the first instance and then hoping that you leave some left in the tank on your return.
They will then sell that unused fuel to the next customer who took them up on the cheap car hire price.
An airline comparison
This type of scam would not work in any other industry.
Just imagine if an airline was offering a £10 flight to Spain. When you got in your seat you were presented with a mandatory box of £70 worth of food, which must be consumed while you were on that 2 hour flight.If you have food left you will be requested to leave it on the plane and the cabin crew will resell it to another customer on the next flight.
Sounds crazy? But this is what the car hire companies are doing.
My advice, following my bad experience in Spain, is to look more closely at your Car Hire costs. And I would suggest you visit www.enjoycarhire.com.
They will show you the real cost.
Enjoy Car Hire have become the first car hire broker that provides only quotes with a fair fuel policy on their website. As such they have been recognized by Money Saving Expert among many others. Their goal is to avoid car rental rip-offs.
So when you are looking to book your car for your next well earned holiday then take a look at what will be needed to be paid at the rental desk on arrival.
Top Tip
Always look at the fuel policy, unless you are renting with Enjoy Car Hire.
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WHICH FUEL POLICY TO GO FOR
The Good Full/Full policy:
You are given the car with a full tank of fuel and you are asked to bring it back with a full tank of fuel. If you do not bring it back with a full tank then you may be charged a refuelling charge plus an inflated cost for the missing fuel. Follow the simple rules and you only end up paying for fuel you have used.
Return back the same policy:
This one doesn’t really need an explanation, on collection your rental car will have a certain amount of fuel which will be marked on your rental agreement, return it the with the same as collected it with. Always check that the fuel level is the same on the agreement before you leave the rental station.
The Bad Full/Empty
You are given the car with a full tank of fuel and you are asked to bring it back with an empty tank. Don’t be fooled by the words “empty tank” what this really means is that you should bring it back with whatever you do not use which obviously results in some people returning a large amount of fuel that they have paid for. If you have booked a car with this fuel policy you may as well use the car as much as you can, after all you have paid for the fuel, you may as well use it.
The Ugly Full/Empty (with inflated petrol prices)
Again just like the “bad” you are given the car with a full tank of fuel and you are asked to bring it back with an empty tank. The main issue that the price of this fuel is hugely inflated and you will pay nearly 50% more at the desk than at the pumps.
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