Car Hire

There you are Shampers, another commission hit heading your way. Just joined - I am always up for getting a bit of discount whichever way you do it.

Cheers,

Thanks Will

Now here's the good bit.

Any referral fee i get goes to meningitis charities (i survived it in 2004) via a GAYE donation.

I donate £16.50 - Effectively your £10 referral fee pre-tax, and my company matches what i donate, so your £10 just became £33 for my charity.

You'll never find me giving to charities in the street because of this.

Cheers 

Spot on.

I wondered if anyone has used Goldcar recently. We've used them quite often - usually booked through Do You Spain - but very unhappy with them this last time.

Like several on this thread I paid £40-ish for an excess policy to avoid having to take their additional insurance but last time (end of january) I was told that it was useless since the only insurance they now provide is 3rd party (which I imagine they are legally obliged to give you in order to drive).  My excess only covers me for £5,000 max but the woman at the Goldcar desk (Alicante airport) said that was no good because on their policy there is no excess to cover - because there is essentially no insurance. You would have to pay the full amount of any damage, so if you wrote a car off then you would be hit with the full charge (her example was £20,000 euros for the Fiesta I was hiring - I'd like to see a Fiesta worth 20K!)

She said my only alternative was to take their "fully comprehensive insurance" at 6 euros a day. Given that it was late in the evening and I had the drive to Condado and didn't want to feel I was driving without adequate insurance, I wasn't really in the mood to argue for too long so I paid up in the end - but I was pretty fed up with it.

This is just another way to rip you off when you aren't in much of a position to argue.  I don't know whether other companies will follow suit with this "even more basic than basic" insurance but it's worth watching out for.

And I wouldn't mind but the DYS website always says "you are fully insured with us - no excess!" Will probably try a different tack for the summer hols.

Penny

Penny,

They are just trying to scaremonger you into taking it. Just say no and agree you will cover it on your credit card. If by some chance you did happen to have an unfortunate accident, any shortcomings in the hire car insurance would be covered by you top-up policy.

Regards,