We just returned from a long weekend in Bellagio Italy. It was a beautiful location and we had a great time but I have returned to the UK with a bit of bad taste and it was nothing to do with the Italian food… it was a result of a hire car excess …. 2800 Euro excess!
Before we left we booked an Avis hire car through Holiday Autos to be collected at Malpensa airport Milan. We took advantage of the Collision Waiver, Theft Waiver and Third Party Protection…… now you would have thought we had it all sewn up… Sadly not the case. Now I am sure the excess was in the small print but, with all the above protection and waivers I didn’t pick up. I really thought I had the full set.
The end result was we paid an extra 211.98 Euros for Excess reduction and 9.15 Euros for Windscreen protection. Yes we could have opted out and stood the 2800 Euro excess had we had a ding….. But we decided better safe than sorry. Looking at the vehicle we ended up with there had been a couple of dings that some poor soul had probably paid the excess on!
Did it ruin the trip?… No of course not… Did it bankrupt us… again thankfully not, but what it did result in is me never booking through Holiday Autos again..next time I will go direct to the hire company.
I’m glad this didn’t ruin your holiday Bob, I have booked with http://www.comparemethat.com/en/car-hire/ before and I also hired got a car from Avis. I didn’t seem to have the same issue as you do you think it was something on holiday autos behalf or Avis? I’ve never used holiday autos but I’m guessing you did all the booking through holiday autos as I did compare me that. It was a while ago that I hired the car but I might look into the small print and see if its the same.
Always worth reading the small print which to be honest we didn’t. Will do in future though 🙂
Every car hire company is the same. When you book online they advertise the “attractive” prices to get you hooked and it is not until you arrive that they have a multitude of add-ons to ramp up the price. Basically because they have a swipe of your credit card and ongoing authorisation, they have you by the short and curlies! They know they can convince you that it is better to pay €200 than risk €2,000 excess on an open authorisation. They also add on extra insurances like the underside of the car and tyres. Spanish companies were told that under EU regulations they could no longer impose the full tank to empty tank scam, (charging the customer for a full tank of petrol on arrival) as it was known that no-one returns a car empty (even though I tried on many occasions to drive back to the airport on fumes alone!). They have simply replaced this golden egg with a “refuelling charge”. I have even had car hire companies deducting “smoking charges” from my credit card after return and in one case an admin charge for dealing with a speeding fixed penalty 3 months later. How do you fight this when you have given an open authorisation and you are home in a different country? They are a total law on to themselves.