Firefly car hire

Has anyone used Firefly car hire at Murcia airport. Just would like to know if they are an okay company or not.

Thanks in advance.

They used to be called Advantage and that's exactly what they did "took advantage " wouldnt recommend them.
Not only do they charge you top wack for fuel they also charge an extra tax! Too. When confronted you're told to take it or leave it
But at 11:00 at night you're not exactly going to leave it and they know that.

Gill.

We picked car up yesterday for two weeks. We had a problem finding them as they operate from a van in car park. 66 euros for full tank of petrol which was cheaper than gold car. We turned down extra insurance because we have an annual policy. They explained if we need to be towed it would cost 350 euros but after I suggested that surely their cars were good enough not to break down they just nodded and accepted we didn't want insurance. No hard sell and brand new car. If we have any hassle during or on return of car we'll let you know but so far so good.

P.S. I think you'll find all are a bit of a rip of regardless of who you use but I suppose they need to earn a living like everyone else.

Consider your self lucky,yes they do have to make a living and we also have annual insurance, and I agree that alot of them tend to rip you off slightly but in our experience they get the gold medal for the "rip off" and they had the worst attitude as well.

Gill

Thanks for your comments. We also have used nearly all the car hire agents (except firefly) at Murcia and all seem to charge loads for fuel, so 66euros for fuel was cheap in my book LizieB.We also have an annual insurance but surely if the car breaks down it would be down to them. We book through Do you Spain and they say that all cars are fully covered apart from the windscreens, tyres, under carriage etc which the excess insurance policy covers anyway.

We have hired from Dickmanns in the past and they too didn't have good reviews. Didn't have any trouble with them and received our deposit back within 7days or so. We just check the car over and take photos of anything wrong, report it back to Dickmanns before leaving the airport with the car after they have recorded any scratches bumps etc on our paperwork.

Hope all goes well for you LizzieB and u have a great holiday. We go 28th June so your review would be well appreciated.

 

Just used Firefly for the 1st time.

Car through EOS was 62 Euros, for 6 day hire.That became 151 Euros + 300 Euro deposit on collection, insurance declined. Noticed that the cost was itemised with the name HERTZ on the credit card bill.

Car was excellent, a brand new Polo.

As usual we take a video of the car on a phone, at time of collection and then again on return, as proof of condition.

Cheers

Just returned (from Spain - Alicante) to find even though I requested that they put the rental charge in as Euros to my credit card they have used their own exchange rate, and submitted as pounds.  A loss of £15.88 to me.  Not a great deal but when you add the fact for a peaceful life I paid the stupid fuel price, and extra insurance so I didn't fall foul of the deposit scam, which they would have also used to fleece me with the exchange rate.  I've submitted a complaint to their e-mail address on the rental form....

Guess what....doesn't exist....

I've contacted doyouspain who recommended these alleged rip off merchants...  Well, I'm alleging at the moment

My husband and I booked 10 day car hire with Dickmans (through doyouspain) .  As we already had annual insurance we declined their extra insurance which they asked us to take.  They said they would need to take an £800 deposit from our credit card as a holding fee which would be returned to us after we returned car.  I asked why £800, as we'd hired a car with them in April (again through doyouspain) and the amount was £300.  I was told it varied depending on type of car you were hiring.  No difference from April but we were tired and just paid.  After returning home it took exactly one week for our money to be credited back and we incurred over £40 in bank charges for the transactions both ways.  We would have been better off taking out their extra insurance.  But of course that is what they are hoping for !  Will never book with them again.  PS. Gold Car do the same but they don't actually deduct the money from your card.  They just take card details and authorisation for the deduction if necessary.

 

AVOID \o/

Basic message is they come up cheap on an Compare type of search (like Rentalcars'dot'com), but in the long run you will pay the same if not more than a ‘reputable’ company. They are part of Hertz, and will ‘Nickle and Dime’ you at the point of hire (that takes way, way too long!) 

Here’s my story of woe ….(Read if you want to use Firefly)

- I arrived at Barcelona airport at the agreed hire reservation time of 11:00am. The rental ‘cabin’ is not located in the Airport but outside in the car park and so had to queue up in the Sun at the hottest point of the day and was not seen until 15:00hrs. That’s 4hrs of waiting in the direct sun. Unlike the other car companies that provided Sun parasols to shade their customers, there was NO shade nor was there any water offered to assist with the dehydration that I suffered.  I can only describe this experience as torture.

- When my reservation was processed the agent asked for my Wife’s driving license, which is somewhat odd given I have paid for myself as just the single named driver. Fortunately my wife was carrying this on her person and showed the license accordingly. We were told that there was a special deal and the third driver will be free, so wanted my Visa card to add my wife so we can have another FOC. I explained that I only wanted myself as the driver but was told the Zafira car I had hired was a large vehicle that accommodates 7 and we would need a second driver. Sorry, where does it state the size of vehicle dictates the required number of drivers? There then entailed a debate in broken English and I finally got the agent to agree I can have the car with a single driver. (Like what I paid for!)

- The agent advised I would need additional insurance to cover the underside of the vehicle along with the windows and tyres. I had already taken out this additional cover with a third party and did not require it. Again the agent was disappointed in not being able to sell additional insurance (again he was probably on commission) and said because of this my Visa card will be blocked for this value and will be continued to be blocked for 10 days after the vehicle return. I was put in the position of if you want a car you have to do this.

This is unacceptable practice and does not appear on my agreement with Rentalcars, where there may be local Taxes or Airport surcharges levied at the time of hire, but we  no agreement to block my Visa card?

- The Agent then explained the car hire came with a 400Euro excess, but my Rentalcars agreement clearly states a ZERO car excess. One of the main reasons that I chose Rentalcars is because of this, only to find it was not correct. So whilst I may have had the agreement of ZERO access with Rentalcars, this agreement did not take place with Firefly.

I feel I have been the victim of a scam, where I entered in good faith into an agreement with Rentalcars yet the car hire company used have their own policy in place.

- When I eventually received my vehicle keys I inspected the vehicle to find there were numerous scratches and dings that were not represented on the paperwork. Firefly told me not to worry about these, it’s just the tyres, windows and underside of the vehicle that was recorded. So I inspected these parts and was horrified at the conditions of the tyres, in particular the front nearside wheel that had obviously been driven over a kerbstone at speed and damaged the outside wall of the tyre. The tyre had a 1” blister such that one could push a finger through the wall and into the tyre.

It then took me a further 30mins being passed around different people before finding someone in Firefly to address this with, their answer made my jaw drop and blood run cold. “Oh yes” they said, “we know about that one, unfortunately the technicians did not have a spare to replace it so we had to leave it on there”.

There was no spare with the vehicle and so I told Firefly I did not want to put my family’s life at risk and that it needs to be made safe. As such we waited another 30mins whilst another Zafira was located off site.

I cannot believe that Firefly knew the tyre was defective and clearly unsafe and yet perfectly happy to hire the vehicle to me. This really is a criminal act in the strictest sense of the word!

I eventually left the Firefly car park at Barcelona Airport at 16:35.

Needless to say I am very distressed by the whole experience and upset that my holiday was mired in this way, so NEVER EVER AGAIN!