As holiday season approaches, as does the time for you to book your car hire. For some people, this is a regular occurrence which happens more than once a year. For others, this may be your first time. To help all our customers understand the options on offer and have an enjoyable time with your hire car, we’ve compiled a list of the top car hire queries and issues for our Complete Guide to Car Hire. For anything we’ve not covered here, please see our FAQs or get in touch.
Parts 2-4 of our complete guide to car hire will follow on our blog over the coming days. Download the full PDF guide here.
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Why do I need a credit card to hire a car?
This is the most commonly asked question our Customer Support Team face. Through Zest, it’s a basic requirement from all the suppliers that we work with for a security deposit to be authorised on a credit card. If you don’t have one, make sure you apply for one as soon as possible and be sure that it will have enough credit limit on it to cover the security deposit needed.
Having a credit card offers both you and the supplier more protection. You can read our full blog on why you need a credit card and the benefits here.
It is not possible to make a booking on the Zest website without acknowledging that you have a credit card. Failure to present a credit card on collection of the vehicle could result in the vehicle being refused to you. This will mark you as a “no show” and there will be no refund due.
How far in advance should I book my car hire? Why do you work on a request basis?
We work on a request basis with all the suppliers that we operate with. This means that when you submit your booking to us, it’s sent onto the supplier for them to confirm. This ensures that they have the requested vehicle category available for your selected dates and times, and reduces your disappointment should you arrive and they can’t meet your requirements. Once they have confirmed the booking, the cost of the rental will be deducted from your account. No money is processed until the supplier has confirmed the booking. In most cases, confirmation is received within a few hours, however, where there is a significant difference in time zone or holiday/weekend, this could be longer.
If the supplier declines a booking due to lack of availability, a member of our Customer Support Team will call you to discuss alternative options.
To guarantee availability, we would recommend booking as far in advance as possible.
We discuss the benefits of booking your car hire in advance, rather than arranging it on arrival in your destination, here.
Photo by: Stasique/Adobe Stock
I don’t understand the insurance. What’s CDW and why do you sell top-up insurance? Will the supplier force me to buy their insurance?
All bookings through Zest include Collision Damage and Theft Waiver (CDW) with either no insurance excess or Excess Reimbursement Insurance (ERI). CDW is a basic insurance policy that covers your hire car from damage and theft.
Where there is no insurance excess, you would just pay the supplier for any damage to parts of the vehicle excluded from the CDW cover.
With an ERI policy, the supplier would deduct repair costs from the security deposit you authorise on your credit card on collection of the vehicle. You would then make a claim back on the ERI for eligible damage.
To check what’s excluded from CDW cover, you can see the list in our terms here.
Top-up insurance
We sell a top-up insurance product to cover damage to these excluded parts. This is a reimbursement policy so you would pay the supplier for any repairs needed and then make a claim back on the top-up insurance post-rental. This top-up insurance is supplied through a third party who stipulates some exclusions as to who can take out this cover. If top-up insurance is not offered to you on Step 2 of the booking process then unfortunately you don’t meet the eligibility criteria required by the third-party supplier. It is possible to source an alternative product elsewhere.
Local insurance products
As the top-up insurance is separate from the supplier, they won’t be aware of what cover you have in place. Therefore, they may try to sell you their own local insurance product. Should you have our top-up insurance in place, or a policy from elsewhere, you can decline the local product. If you feel uncomfortable or pressured by the manner in which the local product is being offered to you, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the time for assistance. A “hard sell” approach is certainly not the level of service we expect from the suppliers that we work with and we are more than happy to liaise with them on your behalf.
Get our full guide to car hire
Parts 2-4 of our complete guide will be published on our blog over the coming days.
Read Part 2 here. Download the full PDF guide here.
Other articles that may be of interest:
Hidden fees: what are the real car hire costs?
The ultimate guide to car hire sizes
The ultimate guide to car hire insurance
If you can’t find the answer to your query, please see our FAQs or get in touch.
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I have used Economy Car Hire/Zest for a number of years and have always found them to be straightforward, helpful and competitive. I have never experienced any pressure from their agents to take additional insurance. There are ways of saying “NO!!” I do, however, take comprehensive photographs of the car I am returning in the event the agent is not available to check for damage and fuel etc., and has previously asked me to leave the keys behind the sun visor. Risky and open to fraud??
Hi Alan,
It’s always best to follow the return instructions given to you by the suppliers. They understand the risks of asking you to leave the keys in the visor. If you’re uncertain, be sure to take plenty of photos or a video of the vehicle in the car park just before you leave so you can prove the condition it was in when you left it. I can see that you hire regularly at Faro Airport; the car park here has a barrier that can only be opened with a ticket, making it difficult to steal a vehicle. There are CCTV cameras also.
If in the future you would like some reassurance that the vehicle has been retrieved safely by the supplier, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
Kind regards,
Jessica
Zest Car Rental
dear sir I have been reading the daily mail with regards to potential fraud being committed by car hire companys i.e eurocar is this something ZEST should be looking into . I feel uncomfatable about this
Good morning,
Thank you for your comment. We are aware of the article published in the Daily Mail regarding a small number of suppliers at Malaga Airport, and of the issues that have arisen with Europcar. Please be assured that this is certainly not the level of service we expect from the suppliers that we operate with.
We issue a post-rental survey to all our customers upon their return to gain their feedback and evaluation of the service they have received from the supplier. We closely liaise with the suppliers to pass on feedback and suggestions where necessary. Should a supplier continually fall below the standards we expect, we would cease to work with them.
I can see that you normally take out our additional top-up insurance which means that accidental damage to the vehicle is covered, and with the included CDW with zero excess liability, you would not be out of pocket. In light of the articles, we have updated our guide to car hire insurance, found here- https://www.zestcarrental.com/blog/2017/08/11/complete-to-car-hire-insurance/, which you may find useful.
We operate 24/7 emergency support for all customers on-rental should it be required. If, throughout a rental period, a query or issue arises, we can be contacted immediately for assistance and support.
We appreciate how these types of articles can cause a level of unease but would like to reassure you that we’re here for assistance should it be required.
Kind regards,
Jessica
Zest Car Rental
On two occasions over the last six weeks I have hired through your company, cars from two different hire companies at Alicante airport both times I have had the hard sell treatment with regard to insurance with the first needing to go into dispute with them regarding miss selling . Whilst there last week I whitnessed one lady going away in tears due to hard sell and misleading statements from the staff
Please contact me if you want more detail
Good morning,
Thank you for your comment. I can see that on the last two bookings you placed with us, you had taken out our additional top-up insurance. Therefore, the vehicle was fully covered and no further insurance was necessary. The “hard sell” approach is certainly not the level of standard we expect you to receive from the suppliers that we operate with. If in future you experience this behaviour again, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the time so we can liaise with the supplier on your behalf regarding the insurance.
Unfortunately, there is no law stopping the representatives from going to extreme measures to sell their local insurance but we remain available for 24/7 support, should it be required, to help reassure and support our customers throughout their rental.
Kind regards,
Jessica
Zest Car Rental