# Car rental



## Nov02 (Aug 16, 2016)

We are flying to Alicante next month for 5 days to have a look around before moving over in April. We need to rent a car for the 5 days to pick up and drop off at airport and i actually thought it was going to be straight forward. Was looking on Europcar and don't understand about the 'extra's' friends keep warning me about. Can someone kindly help. Many thanks


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## Evilbungle (Jul 8, 2016)

Nov02 said:


> don't understand about the 'extra's' friends keep warning me about.


It should indeed be easy. I have hired cars in Spain with Avis, Firefly, Europcar and Hertz and it has always been simple. 

There are often extras such as Young Person Surcharge or they will often try and sell you the additional insurance. At the moment I get free hire car insurance with American Express Platnum card but before that I used to buy my own (Just google hire car insurance) so when I say this they stop trying to sell. As a general rule the cheaper the car the more added extras they will try and sell you. For example a week with Firefly last year in Barcelona was 150€ Three Days with Avis (Same Airport) was 225€ but Firefly spent quite a while with the people in front of me trying to upsell everything where as Avis don't seem to (But again that could just be because I say no to everything) 

Not really sure any of this helps, if you have a specific question (Specific chrge in mind) let me know and I will try to answer that.


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## Nov02 (Aug 16, 2016)

Hi Thanks for the info. Still not too sure about a few things. One is the questions on form is as follows. 
If you want to reduce liability to £0. Then tick the above box. They want to take up to 3000? deposit.???? Not sure what that is. Do I tick the box?


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Some hire car companies will insist on blocking €1,000 on your credit card if you don't take out their additional insurance package. They don't actually take the money but it reduces the amount you have available to spend. If you return the car without any damage they unblock the card and it hasn't cost you anything, but if there are dents or scratches they will charge the card to pay for the repairs. In my opinion it is better to pay the extra insurance charge for peace of mind: no need then to have your credit card blocked and nothing to worry about if you damage the car. It may seem expensive, often around €100 a week, but when you look at the overall cost of the car hire it's still not a bad price to pay.


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## Tom1957 (May 1, 2016)

It's much cheaper to buy excess insurance here in the UK before travelling- that's what I did in August and it cost about £17 for 10 days.


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## davids0865 (Apr 12, 2016)

Tom1957 said:


> It's much cheaper to buy excess insurance here in the UK before travelling- that's what I did in August and it cost about £17 for 10 days.


Who did you use as that seems a bargain?


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## The Skipper (Nov 26, 2014)

Tom1957 said:


> It's much cheaper to buy excess insurance here in the UK before travelling- that's what I did in August and it cost about £17 for 10 days.


That is possible, I know, but most of the hire car companies will still want to block your credit card for €1,000 if you have your own insurance. They will charge you for any damage and advise you to then reclaim the cost from your insurer, which I am told is not always as simple as it sounds and could take some time to organise. It costs more, I know, but if you take out the car hire company's insurance you don't have anything to pay if you accidentally damage their car and no credit card blocking.


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## Tom1957 (May 1, 2016)

davids0865 said:


> Who did you use as that seems a bargain?


I used this site but there are comparison sites available.

https://carhireexcess.com

It's true that the hire co. will still block your card and you will be liable for the excess, what you are insuring for is to be able to recover the excess.


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## PNE Matt (Feb 28, 2016)

Tom 1957 is right, buy an excess policy in the UK then if you do damage the car the amount the car hire company charges you can be claimed back from your policy, I have used this kind of policy for a few years now. Also ensure you hire a car with a full tank for full tank policy-that way you are not paying a surcharge for their fuel.


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## Evilbungle (Jul 8, 2016)

You can always find cheeper excess insurance in the UK, As I have always (Well not always but it feels like it.) travelled a lot I used to get an annual policy from carinsurance4u which covers you for unlimited rentals, I then took out a seperate credit card which I just used for the deposit so I knew I was always covered and it didn't affect what I could spend. 

Now I have the Amex Platinum card as that gives free excess insurance, and as it doesn't have a limit having a deposit on it isn't an issue. - Obviously this is only really relevant to heavy hire car users. For the occasional rental I would't expect to pay more than a few pounds per day (Compaired to about 10 - 15 if you take it from the hire car company.) It all depends on how much you can be bothered to mess around. It is definitely quicker and easier to just take the insurance from the company, it depends on how much value you place on your time.


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## Evilbungle (Jul 8, 2016)

Slightly off topic, but related. As I was writing my last post I had a thought.

When you hire a car you walk around it and they mark all the scratches etc... When you have finished they check again and if there are any scratches they bill you for their repair - if they repair the scratches though, why are there some there when you start? surely the next person who has that car will now just have two scratches marked down instead of one and so the car will go on collecting scratches. Now obviously you could say it is because a car with scratches has lost value for resale but the loss of resale value between say 5 scratches and 6 scratches is minimal (Unless they are big scratches of course) so what are we paying for? 

Sorry, just a random thought I thought i would share!


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## Simon22 (May 22, 2015)

It's a simple way to make money, you pay for the scratches you made and at the end of it's a life a complete respray hides all the damage and much cheaper than doing one mark at a time. It also makes it look like new for the victim, erm, buyer.


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## Dedaneen (Jul 6, 2013)

Just did a wee search to see how much it costs (generally) basic ford was only 90E for a week but then the extra charges hit in page after page, there was the 1K deposit or a choice of 120E and no deposit, fuel charges of 25--40E, satnav extra, age range could cause more expenses, kiddy seats, extra driver etc, roughly worked out at approximately 250E a week. Which from the page format is really over twice what they are advertising up front.
A wee question for those on the know, can renting long term (3--6 months) come up cheaper?


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## dmret (Mar 12, 2013)

I have been renting since February. The longest rental period I have found is with Recordgo and that is for 60 days. Should any one know of a longer period I would interested.


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## Dedaneen (Jul 6, 2013)

Try this lot to see how you get on, dont forget to let me know 

Spain car rental - Cheap car hire Alicante, Malaga, Mallorca & more


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## dmret (Mar 12, 2013)

So far no cheaper. Recordgo seem to have temporarily suspended the 60 day option.


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## Dedaneen (Jul 6, 2013)

dmret said:


> So far no cheaper. Recordgo seem to have temporarily suspended the 60 day option.


It did say on there that companies are reluctant to rent out over the 60 period


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