AVOID AVOID AVOID
Basic message is they come up cheap on an Compare type of search (such as Rentalcarsdotcom), but in the long run you will pay the same or more than a ‘reputable’ company. They are part of Hertz, and will ‘Nickle and Dime’ you.
Here’s my story of woe ….(read if you are going 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 then 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!