Beware Goldcar and flight delays
Yesterday we travelled from Cardiff to Alicante. A usual trip made unusual by an 8 hour flight delay. Arriving tired and weary at the Goldcar desk they announced that as we were over 6 hours late Rental Cars had cancelled our booking. On contacting Car rentals.com they said this was incorrect. On further discussion Goldcar admitted THEY had cancelled the booking - apparently they only hold bookings for 6 hours. Firefly hold it for 24 as a comparison. Needless to say we were not the only passengers caught out. My original car hire for 17 days full to full with free additional driver was £44.00. Goldcar now quoted 400 plus additional driver plus late fee! Total would have been 550 euros. Many other travellers worn down by the delay paid.
We refused.
Mainly because the three men working behind the counter were rude, surly and in one case were trying to make all clients take out the extra insurance etc etc. We opted to stick two fingers up to a corrupt system. We went on line using Do You Spain and rebooked a car for 8.00am with Firefly whose staff had been honest, helpful and a marked contrast to Goldcar. However it did mean a very unwelcome night on an airport bench courtesy of Goldcar - I do hope people reading this avoid Goldcar to show them that bad customer service really can come back to hit your profits! The moral of the tale, e mail your car rental supplier informing of any delay just to cover yourself. In our case Goldcar are off our list of car hire for all family and friends. To Mario the guy who works nights on Goldcar I just hope what goes around comes around!!! Our bill with firefly was still 218 euros. However a huge saving on the Goldcar price quoted.