Picking the right car rental company can be a bit of a lottery, but as Paddy Comynexplains, there are ways to avoid the pitfalls Avoiding the pitfalls and hidden charges
As Roy Keane (as well as a few others I am sure) once said, "fail to prepare, prepare to fail." Wise words and no truer than when it comes to booking flights, hotels and, it seems, renting cars. An often poorly-planned part of any summer holiday, the rental car is essential, especially if you plan to explore more than the hotel swimming pool.
Many of us wait until the last minute and find ourselves queuing at a desk with some other flustered families scrambling for the last car left on the lot. And this often means we are too desperate to refuse, and too exhausted to argue about the price or indeed check the paperwork.
In order to save you some of the trouble, we decided to do a little bit of the legwork for you.
We picked three familiar destinations and a handful of the larger operators, together with those offered by the main handlers Ryanair and Aer Lingus.
We picked the same week in each of the cases and went for the same car or genre of car in each case. All prices included the relevant insurance and also tax and collision damage waiver, although it is always advisable to check the details on this.
For example, with Hertz Super Cover (to waive your liability in the case of damage or theft) and Personal Accident Insurance and Personal Effects Coverage is extra. People sometimes assume that the collision damage waiver covers everything but it often excludes theft, damage to glass, tyres and underbody and the excess is usually around the €700 mark. We chose Malaga in Spain first of all and the week was from June 11th-18th.
We looked at three different types of car, the economy, which is usually a Ford Fiesta or Opel Corsa, the compact, that can be anything from the likes of an Opel Astra to a Ford Focus, and then there are the standard cars such as a Peugeot 407 or Toyota Avensis.
Argus (argusrentals.com) was the cheapest for the economy and compact cars by quite a degree compared to Alamo, which was the most expensive. When it came to the standard car, booking the car through the Aer Lingus website brought the largest saving.
The same car, booked through Ryanair (who also use Hertz) rather inexplicably cost 39 per cent more than through the Aer Lingus website (€325 versus €197). Booking the car through Hertz itself cost €285.
Next up was Rome, and this time it was the Auto Europe website that came up trumps for the economy car with €161.92 for the week's rental. However, when it came to the compact and standard cars, once again booking the car through the Aer Lingus website was the cheapest option in both cases, considerably cheaper than even the Hertz site alone.
Finally in Paris, there once again was a considerable saving to be made by booking through the Aer Lingus website, over both Ryanair and indeed Hertz themselves, although in this instance it should be noted that the Ryanair rental was from Beauvais as opposed to Charles de Gaulle for the rest. The full list of prices we uncovered was relevant as of Sunday May 6th.
Pre-booking appears to be the cheapest option by far, and this is easily illustrated from the results.
Even if you book in advance but elect to pay at the desk you will pay more than if you pay in advance.
You will also have to pay more for additional drivers, extras like child seats, booster seats and satellite navigation devices. The simple rule, then, is to get on to the computer and the phone in plenty of time before your trip, do your homework and shop around because the savings can be considerable.Suffering the fate of being put through the confused hands of a holidaymaker is a cruel blow to any new car. They get bruised, battered, neglected and downright abused. And it is not just their temporary suitors that inflict the bad behaviour. Rental companies are more than capable of inflicting their own misbehaviour in the form of hidden charges.
Tina Leonard is the manager of the European Consumer Centre in Dublin and according to her, the biggest single area of complaint in relation to car rental is that, shortly after they return home, consumers find their credit card debited for an amount for damage to the car and the consumer says they caused no damage.
"The most important message we can give is to ensure you check for damage before rental and when you return it, and do this in the company of an employee of the car rental company who can sign off on it. If this isn't possible then you should try and take lots of photos of the undamaged car, preferably with the date stamp option on, so as to have proof if the rental company does charge you for damage later on."
The AA's Conor Faughnan echoes many of the ECC sentiments. "The best price is not always the best deal nor does it often tell the complete story. It is vital to consider the insurance, fuel rates, mileage and recovery services," he adds.