Sewing Machines and Crafting

We had friends stay in our apt for a week in block 24. They used the under ground car parking on the first night, only 3 cars in at the time of parking. On returning the next morning, there was a massive scratch down the side and a dent on the brand new hire car (only 30kms on the clock) who-ever had done this, must have noticed - as the scratch covered both the driver and passenger doors and must have damaged their own car.  

On their return to the UK, they find the compulsory amount  had been debited from their credit card - they didnt know about the small amount you pay extra to cover for things like this which is approx 3 euros per day - depending on the rental company.

So whoever did the damage is reading this - Be ashamed!. It took the edge of what was a great holiday.

I have also had bad experiences with hire car excess payments. Only last month in Italy I returned a car with an almost invisible scuff on the bumper, I was charged 850 euros excess initially with a limit of 1500. Luckily I had paid for zero excess insurance (only 9.50 for 5 days) so should get it all back.   Great rates at     www.worldwideinsure.com

Hertz charge more than this per day!!

mike

If you book with WWW.DOYOUSPAIN.COM  you will see if you book the smaller cars there is no excess (luckily for us we have been scraped twice and both times in the car park at Carrefour in Cartagena!!).

Sandra

if you regularly hire cars when on holiday  we can recommend insurance4carhire.com   we pay £49 for the year, it covers the insured and any named driver on the car hire agreement, and it means we pay no excess when hiring any normal vehicle  (this includes not having to pay the ubiquitous tyre and screen excess they always try to get you to pay at the desk on arrival)   we reckon on  an average of 5 weeks hire per year, we save money and have the peace of mind  of knowing that any attempt to get us to stump up for sums such as those quoted on this thread will be dealt with by the insurance company - as long as we follow their policy terms.  
 One thing we have learned is that we walk right round the hire vehicle when we pick it up ( and look inside the boot etc) and get the company to  note  and sign for any defects,/scratches at the time.  We then cover ourselves by taking photo's of the car on it's return to the depot.  It sounds laborious, but actually only takes a very few minutes at the beginning and end of each holiday. Friends of ours handed back a car without any marks or defects only to find their credit card hit for £500 for a scratch and damage to the bumper  over 4 weeks after they returned from holiday. The policy will cover such an eventuality.

NB  we always ensure we have a copy of the insurance4car hire policy with us, to prove to the car hire company that we don't need to pay any excess.  It has worked well for the past 18months.

Hi,

Just something that may save someone some grief..I rented a car from Europa Car Hire at the Airport and clearly requested all available Damage Waiver Insurance etc....only to be billed euro400 for a small bump I had during the week...The forms were in Spanish so I did not know they had not covered me as requested...hate being ripped off , will vote with my feet and go elsewhere in future..!

Utrinque Paratus