Car hire at Alicante and Murcia

A lot of the "off site" companies have changed their policies on insurance and also increased their prices. An email from my agent has said:

"We like to keep you up-to-date with any news relating to car hire and you might have noticed in the past month or so all suppliers have made changes to their terms, mainly concerning insurance. They have all increased their excess, with small cars now having an excess of between €800 and €1000 Euros. Some suppliers have now stopped their free additional driver so make sure you look for the free additional driver sign which can be seen below

At Alicante Airport both Drivalia and Econorent still include a free additional driver. All suppliers will still honour their previous terms so if you have bookings with Dickmanns, Solmar and Goldcar that included a free additional driver and lower excesses then please don't worry this will still be in place. We understand car hire terms can be very confusing so if you need any information or help in working out the best deal please do not hesitate to contact me.

I have always used Economy car hire at Alicante airport l fly back and fro every 6weeks throughout the year when l picked the car up in at the end of February l was charged £75.00 that was Pound's not Euro's for full tank of petrol in a car that takes a maximum of 43 ltrs work the maths out you're self when we got back to the UK we complained we did not get any reduction in price but we did get a 17 euro refund for the petrol we did not use l will not use Economy car hire again.

I got stung this weekend. Booked via DoYouSpain and took out their insurance. Got to the Dickmanns rental van at Murcia airport and was told I could only have full/full if I took their insurance @ €85. If I didn't, it was full/empty @ €82 euros for a three day hire! He also pointed at some other charges.

As it was after 9pm on a Friday evening, I stupidly took their insurance on top of the DoYouSpain insurance and had to pay around €15 to top up after the weekend.

These hidden charges are a real sting from the so called cheap car hire companies.

I have two more bookings via DoYouSpain this year but think I will look around a bit for future bookings rather than using DoYouSpain again.

If you you hire cars on a regular basis you can take a independent car hire excess insurance out for around £50.00 that will cover you for 12 months.

Most of the car hire desks will not accept the independent insurance policy and you are still left in dilemma of leaving your credit card deposit or coughing up the car hire company excess insurance.

I don't know how this rip off  ( scam ) is allowed to continue..

Regards

You are aware that car hire companies in UK don't accept these insurance policies either? Which is correct as it is nothing to do with them. Last year I hired a car with Hertz in UK and declined the insurance as I have the annual policy and they put £250 on my credit card. This year I went through Enterprise and they put £400 on the card. Some companies will charge the full excess to your card so best to check how much that actually is.

You should normally not even see it as a charge on your credit card if you return the car before the payment date is due which can be 6 weeks or so after. You will see it on a debit card or prepayment card as it is taken off straight away.

If the car hire company keeps the deposit or charges more, you claim it back off your annual policy which covers car hire excess.

We travel to Spain a fair bit and generally use do you Spain eventhough the last 3 times I have said never again, we as tourist are now open season for these rip off merchants excessive deposits, rip off fuel charges, fuelling fees? fake damage claims, service charges etc I could go on and on, and this really does start off your stay with a bad taste.

Car hire in Spain used to be relatively straight forward now they all seem to have jumped on the bandwagon and I can only see this getting worse, I myself would rather pay a little more knowing exactly what I will pay for from the start and not having all the goalposts changed once you arrive in Spain. Does anyone know of a company like this? Who will 100% guarantee the price and conditions from the start.

Regards mike

I fear the whole deacle will get worse during the summer, they need regulating, they are nothing better than thieves. A lot of the blame is down to the agencys like Do You and others 

Surely the multinationals can't behave like that - Sixt, Hertz, Alamo, Budget, Europcar  - Of course you will pay more, but will you in the long run!

You are under no obligation to take the excess insurance out when you hire a car in Spain but if you decline the excess policy you will have the agreed amount taken from you're credit card this amount will be credited back in to you're account when you return the car provided you have not damaged the car if you have damaged the car the hire company will keep you're agreed amount to cover the damage if this happens to you you will then pass the whole scenario over to the excess car insurance company for them to sort out the excess will be paid back to you from the insurance company not the hire company.

I use Do You Spain all the time, have done for years, the last time a short while ago the costs came to...

CC Fee 3.30€ ??

Fuel full to empty 56.66€

Service charge for getting fuel 18.70€

Company insurance 85.80€

V.A.T. 34.54€

Tot 199.00€

I rented a Fiat 500 3 door but got a new Corsa 5 door, rented it via the website 35.00€ for 13 days. About (Todays exchange rate) £170.50 = £13.00 a day.

A friend came over to the UK and rented a crappy Ford Focus 10 days £250, a Spanish friend rented at the Airport UK paid for a new Ford focus £500 14 days.

The coloured font options seem to have gone, I need to do quotes in bold now 

You are aware that car hire companies in UK don't accept these insurance policies either? Which is correct as it is nothing to do with them.

That's not a problem Bob as they pre authorise the amount. A lot of the companies in Spain physically take the amount from your card, then have to refund it to you.  Potentially detrimental to the renter in currency fluctuation.

You are under no obligation to take the excess insurance out when you hire a car in Spain 

Correct windtalker, but what some companies are now saying is that even if you have booked a full/ full hire, if you do not take their insurance you can only have full/ empty!!

I started using Solmar when Econorent stopped using Murcia, but may start using Alicante again instead of Murcia because apparently they only charge 6€ day for the insurance.

Mark

It would be good to hear from some who have had the equivalent bought UK insurance to the Spanish car hire one to know if any damage or accidents did occur while having the rental car as to how did your own  bought UK insurance company dealt with it.

Fact is if you prang, or someone else prangs the rental car while in Spain and you have the extra rental  insurance, take the car back and tell them, nothing is said or done about it. 

But if you have your own rental insurance, you will / might have to lose the initial credit card payment, then any damage has to be paid for if it turns out to be your fault, or, lets say you don't know who hit the rental car, inform your insurance company, wait for the paperwork to come out,  fill out the claim forms with any necessary evidence, wait maybe more weeks to hear back, in the mean time probably have to pay something of the credit card bill, could go on for two / three months more, only then to be told..."That damaged part is not covered under this policy".

Maybe...Just maybe...Now the extra rental is not so much of a bad idea.

Sorry...Pressed once...Post duplicated??

We use 'insurance4carhire.com', an annual contract costs £39.99. We were once charged for a missing rear wiper unit, which was spotted when we returned the car, I asked for a receipt which I sent to the insurer and was reimbursed without any problem. However if I found a large charge on my credit card statement weeks after returning to the UK, I would firstly inform the insurer, they would no doubt ask me to attempt to get the car hire firm to email me an invoice and reason for the charge, I would also keep my credit card company in the loop.  

I have an annual policy from icarhireinsurance.com which is based in the UK.

Being a regulr traveller to Murcia I use Centuaro as a 'Gold Club member' having tried others but not off airport or in the car park companies. The queue for picking up the car is prioritised, points accrue and it means that I can get free car hire on one or two off peak trips. The have a Full/Full policy for gold card holders.

They used to waive the excess but now hold an amount on a credit card which I don't object to as I use the annual insurance policy (i do ask why they don't sell an annual policy to Gold car members...).

i did have a problem with a bizarre accident a couple of years ago with a faulty handbrake on a VW Touran, which rolled down a hill and seriously danmaged a parked car. This was handled with no fuss and no need to claim.

My nephew who lives in Valencia and travels alot has the worldwide annual policy which saved him over 400 dollars on a trip to the States a couple of years ago. He did have an accident which resulted in a claim whih was handled very efficiently by icarhire insurance and my nephew was very impressed with the service.

We were in the states last year and hired via Alamo. Their trick was to say that if the annual policy was used we did not have towing cover in event of a breakdown!

Mike.  

Mike,

I don't even mention the annual policy to the car hire reps, it's nothing to do with them, I simply refuse to pay for their extra cover and listen to them tell me what an awful surprise could be awaiting me when my credit card statement arrives.

What we are insuring ourselves against is the bad practice of many of the car hire firms and their employees. Of course they will not be over the moon with customers who don't take out their outrageously expensive top up insurance, they are obviously targeted on their sales of this.

I always have a 'return with the same amount of fuel as when collected' deal, however I now insist on seeing the working fuel gauge after being told that the car was a quarter full when the fuel gauge warning light was on.

I got so fed up with all these problems with the car hire companies I ended up buying my own car & leaving it in Spain.

I worked it out that it was cheaper in the long run to buy my own car & park it at the airport.

Even with all the running costs on around 6 visits to Spain a year it is far cheaper than hiring a car.

It was all brought to a head about 4 years ago when the cheapest quote for 5 weeks hire in July / August was £1500.00 !!

Hi,  I just rented from RentAgain, picked up from ALC and returned to MJV, put back the fuel used only, 33 euros per day at Easter. Very friendly service. Their policy to cover excess was 35 euros, I think or they swipe a card for 350 euros. Great personal service. Would recommend. They are based in the Supermarket car park behind PaddysPoint in La Zenia.