Read the small print when booking car hire
Written by Karen Bryan
With car hire it’s not generally the cheapest price that’s the best deal for you as you have to judge the quote on their final total truly inclusive price. We’re flying to Pisa for a week at the end of May 2008 and need to hire a car as we’re visiting rural Umbria and Lake Trasimeno. I booked the flights a few months ago and did start looking for car hire in January but gave up as it wasn’t easy to compare like with like.
However I thought I’d better get it sorted so after some evaluation I discovered that the best deal for us with no insurance excess to pay and 2 drivers included was with ecomonycarhire. As I’ve booked with them previously I received a 10% discount on the price for bookings made by 28 February by typing in the code EBNLD2008. This brought the price down to £157 for a supermini such as Fiat Panda. Italy is quite expensive for car hire as we paid £118 for a weeks car hire in the Canaries in November 2007.
AutoEurope would have been cheaper if there was only one driver at £140 with a refundable excess but they charge an additional driver fee of £5 per day, bringing the total price per day up to £175.
I had to be careful to read the small print. There was a quote which was £1 cheaper at £156. However that company charged an additional 20 euros plus VAT, around £17, for out of hours arrival as we are due in on a Saturday evening. The company quoting at £157, with whom I booked, operate until 23.00 on Saturdays, so no additional fees.
With the no excess offered by economycarhire and other companies such as AutoEurope you are not covered for damage to windscreens, tyres, undercarriage or the interior of the car. If you book a hire car for more than 2 weeks a year it could be worth your while purchasing an annual excess insurance policy which costs around £50 a year for Europe. This policy covers you for damage to windscreens, tyres etc. With this policy you could rent a car from AutoEurope for £130.
I know that sometimes it seems too much bother to spend all this time checking prices and reading the small print. Fair enough with a hotel room, so what if you pay another couple of pounds for the room but it’s a different matter with car hire, as you could end up paying an excess of up 1600 euros if you book with some companies on a so called all inclusive quote.
Quite often I find agencies offer you a better deal. I saved over £1600 by going with a UK agency to hire a Budget car in the USA for 2 months despite being under 25, and needing unlimited miles (12,000 miles I clocked up).
The main reason for the huge price difference was the insurance cover, Budget slap a heft per-day premium for under 25s. A per-day premium still applies to the over 25s and I worked out even then, huge savings to be made.
Thanks for your comment Kyle. I’ve also found that car hire brokers or agencies have come up with cheaper prices than booking direct with the car hire companies.
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As a representative of Auto Europe UK and contributor to the company blog http://auto-europe.blogspot.com, I’d like to mention that the company does have a Best Rate Guarantee. This means that we guarantee to beat any competitor rate on a like for like basis. So, in a situation such as above may we recommend you try calling 0800 358 1245 and asking the operator to check the rates and offer you a better deal?
Thanks for your input Rowan.
[...] always trying to point out the potential pitfalls of car hire because it is complicated to come up with best all round car hire deal. You should never purchase [...]
Hi there,
Customers prefer good service and reliable cars. Price and insurance are also of great importance.
Nick
Nick – thanks for your comment. Yes having a reliable hire care is really important. The main issue I have is that many hire care prices claim to be inclusive but in fact have large excesses to pay if the hire car is damaged or stolen.
I’m actually in the process of a long-term hire for a tour around Australia (I know it’s not in Europe, but bear with me).
As Alison pointed out, the excess can cost £1000s – in my case, its £4000. An option to reduce the excess to nil is available, at around £200 to £600.
I have discovered some credit cards designed for the regular traveller will cover the excess for you (obviously you make the hefty payment if you got the money and get a refund later from your credit card company). So if you have one of those credit cards that provide lots of travel insurance cover, airmiles, etc, then it may also have provided car-insurance and excess payment.
Kyle, thanks for your comment. It would be great if you could let us know which credit card offer this cover.
The American Express Platinum card is one example – you do not even have to pay with the card itself to be covered – it is simply an insurance benefit (along with a whole host of other benefits such as Priority Club airport lounge membership cards for two people).
Downside is that there is an annual £300 fee for the card – but if you are regular traveller like me, the whole range of benefits for travellers (and shoppers) would cost far more than £300 if purchased separately. I believe other cards by American Express may offer fewer benefits for less costs – one of those is the same benefits but must be paid for using the card.
I’m researching at the moment whether current savings accounts provided by banks along with “freebie” travel insurance cover also include car rental stuff.
It’s always worth having a look at your bank/credit card/insurance policies to see if you are already covered, and avoid duplicate insurance cover for anything.
Kyle, thanks for your reply. I suppose as with everything you’d to have to work out if paying the £300 for the AMEX Platinum is a good deal for your personally.
I booked the top up insurance offered by economycarhire but found to my cost that locks were STILL not covered (even though glass, tyres and underbody is). The lock on our car was damaged in Portugal and economycarhire were very unhelpful – I think this is v misleading as their website states in bold that you are covered for theft AND DAMAGE.
Sue – did you pay the additional fee and this still does not cover locks and keys? I will email them to ask about this.
Hi Karen
Yes, I paid the ‘top-up’ insurance with economy carhire in the UK when I booked the car. On returning the car to the airport the representative from Airauto (their local supplier) told me that the locks were covered and that I would be able to claim the 300euros back from economycar hire. BUT – apparently locks are not covered by their insurance brokers (which are questor insurance). Most reputable major insurers (like Fortis) DO cover locks in their top up insurance – so I think this is very misleading. Ecomomy carhire boldly state on their website that there is ‘no excess for theft or damage’ but fail to list the exclusions in the same size font. If a thief had smashed the car window I would have been covered, but because he damaged the lock then I am not covered! Crazy!!
Sue – the exclusion of locks and keys has been confirmed by econonycarhire in their reply to my email below -
“The additional insurance does not cover loss of vehicle keys or damage to the locks as per the terms and conditions as displayed at the time of booking and on your booking voucher”
Looks like I have not taken my own advice and read the small print carefully as
I’m in Spain at moment with car hired through economycarhire having paid the additional insurance and assuming I was covered for everything.
Hi Karen,
The following wording appears alongside the top-up insurance option and we think this makes it very clear to customers:
An additional £7.00 will provide insurance cover against damage to glass, wheels, tyres and the under body, which are not already covered by our comprehensive insurance. View https://www.economycarhire.com/docs/insurance_faq.php and https://www.economycarhire.com/docs/Insurance_Policy_Wording.pdf.
I would also like to point out that there is no insurance excess in the event of theft or collision damage, please see our terms and conditions for full details http://www.economycarhire.com/terms.php. At the moment our top-up insurance which is offered when booking online at £1 per day only covers loss or damage to the glass, wheels, tyres, and under body. We are however talking with our insurance provider about the possibility to extend the cover to the locks and other parts of the vehicle that are not normally covered.
Economy Car Hire, thanks for your comment, I do hope that you can come to an agreement with your insurance provider so that your car hire can become truly all inclusive.
It is disappointing that an “all-inclusive” insurance still have some exceptions. When people want to pay extra for peace of mind, they are willing to pay for everything to cover.
It does not make commercial sense to offer less than this to people who are willing to pay more for 100% cover. So if that cover costs an extra £1 a day (or whatever), people may well be willing to pay that for 100% peace of mind than those who are willing to take a risk anyway and pay for a substantially lower cover price.
I have discovered that car rental companies in Australia are not willing to forego extra charges as goodwill should a disaster (remember the recent forest fires in Oz?) prevent the tourists from delivering their vehicles to a previously agreed place and time. Once again I would have paid extra if for some reasons outside my control, I’m unable to deliver the vehicle at the agreed location and time.
An agreement with insurers in the future would be very good but will not help past customers who have been misled by airauto staff at the airport. The economycar hire website states on the ‘front’ page of their website ‘no excess for theft or damage’ but fail to say that they only mean damage caused by collision. The implication when you take out ‘top-up’ insurance is that makes a partial policy inclusive. Most major insurers DO include locks and keys in their top up insurance.
When even experienced travel writers have been misled by this it is not surprising that economycar hire are catching out a lot of other independent travellers.
Kyle – I agree all inclusive should mean that with no exclusions.
Sure – I have to hold my hands up to not reading the terms and conditions of the additional insurance, I assumed it covered everything excluded by the standard supposedly all inclusive price.
Hi Kyle, Sue and Karen,
We currently provide a more inclusive product than any other car hire broker, with no insurance excess as standard, a free additional driver and unlimited mileage. Where possible we try get all other charges included in the price. As a result of this we are sometimes slightly more expensive than other brokers when you compare the headline price, but once you add up the final price we are normally much cheaper.
With all types of insurance, it is always wise to read the terms and conditions to check what is and is not included as there are many different levels of cover available.
We are always working hard to improve our offering, and we will be enhancing our top-up insurance product shortly.
Economy Car Hire
You are really guilty of repeating yourself now – so forgive me if I do the same and say that yes – future improvements would be great but will not benefit past customers who believed that your top up insurance was comparable to other companies in that it was fully inclusive.
How can you justify covering glass that is broken by a thief but not a lock?
I repeat – crazy.
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