Don’t you just love booking a flight thinking all is well, only to get hit with extras before you travel? The same thing can happen with unscrupulous car hire companies. You book what you think is the final price. You get to the desk and there are extra charges; we call this the ‘budget airline effect’. It starts at the point of booking…
‘Headline price’
You find a great deal online; low deposit and pay the rest at the desk? This sounds amazing but it leaves so much room for extra charges. Once you arrive at the rental desk it could end up costing five times as much as you thought. It’s not only the low-deposit ‘pay on pickup’ scenario, though. If the ‘headline’ car hire price seems too good to be true, it usually is. The lowest prices in the market are usually because the rental company will attempt to claw back costs. Additional insurance or fraudulent damage charges being common. How can you hire a car for a week in Spain for only one euro? The hard truth is… you can’t.
What security deposit?
Not exactly an extra charge from rental providers but more a malpractice from the website where you book the hire in the first place. From our own research we’ve seen many car hire booking websites either hiding the security deposit, or not showing it at all. You can find out more about security deposits here. In short, the deposit ensures the return of the vehicle by placing a block on your credit card. In some instances, the first time a customer will know of the security deposit is upon collection of the vehicle. At this point, customers may not have taken a credit card. This is where customers can then get charged up to five times the rental price in extra insurance. We make sure that security deposits are clearly laid out during the booking process and never hidden away.
Your insurance doesn’t cover you
Another malpractice that is all too common in the car hire industry is the hard-sell of extra insurance. Some firms will attempt to sell their own, to cover themselves in the event of accident damage. This is often as much as 30€ per day! This is usually a much harder-sell with companies that have charged a very low initial rental price. However, if you’ve got your insurance through us, no further insurance is necessary, so any extras can be declined. Find out more about our insurances here.
The car you’ve booked is too small
This started in the states however it seems to have crept over the pond in recent years. You’ll book a certain size vehicle, get to the rental desk and the representative will give the dreaded sharp intake of breath. “You won’t fit all those cases in the car you’ve booked”. You suddenly panic and ‘upgrade’ to a bigger vehicle. Once you arrive at the vehicle holding area, you’re told to pick any of the line-up of vehicles, including the category you originally booked. Essentially, you end up paying for an upgrade you never needed.
We know this isn’t a complete list, these are just a few extra charges and malpractices that we label with the ‘budget airline effect’. Low headline prices but expensive extras prior to, or upon collection is common with the worst car hire companies. Have you experienced any other ‘add-on’ selling? Let us know!
Common sense stuff without trying to scare us too much!
Been using Economy/ Zest for about 8yrs now, I have looked at these other sites due to the Headline price, but as always I head straight for the TERMS AND CONDITIONS thats when I have a little chuckle.
The deposit, the mileage charges, the cross border fees, thats if you can actually cross the border.Always looks good to start with then the money mounts up, always costs more in the long run or the short run pardon the pun
Well I am off to Portugal and Spain again for a bit of golf etc in a week or so and know which car hire company I will be using AGAIN, .For me, Just about the best ZEST.
My first car booked through an airline was with easyJet. I paid for what they called MAXPLUS I thought with a title like that it would include everything. WRONG when we arrived at Palma,Europe car then proceeded to sell us the cover we really needed and thought we already had. This added another £120 to the cost. At the end of 10days we returned the car with small scratch on the side. We thought we were covered for everything . NO we found that now we had to pay another £50 admin charge. Argued with them and Easyjet when we got home. Got no where. From now on it’s ZEST for me no question about it!