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Car hire without being ripped off

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2021 2:52pm
4 replies139 views3 members subscribed
Aly5n

Posts: 6

Location: Finestrat

Joined: 22 Jul 2021

Does anyone have a recommendation for a car hire company out of Alicante Airport that does not rip you off. I want to hire a car from 13th Nov to 16th Nov. I want to pay up front for full insurance so no surprises when I return the car.

Any help gratefully appreciated

Davidastbury

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:32pm

Posts: 47

47 helpful points

Location: Torrevieja

Joined: 3 Aug 2020

Posted: Thu Nov 11, 2021 8:32pm

Hi, give Coys Rent ACar who have an office in Torrevieja and facilities at Alicante airport.  They are very reasonable with no hidden surprises.

Kenbo

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:42am

Kenbo

Very helpful member

Posts: 999

799 helpful points

Location: La Florida

Joined: 6 Dec 2017

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:42am

Also try Magnum and Lara cars, both very helpful and meet you at the airport with the car, these don't operate in the same cynical way of the airport operators.

Jimmy Mack

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:42am

Jimmy Mack

Helpful member

Posts: 196

141 helpful points

Location: Villamartin

Joined: 30 Dec 2019

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 5:42am

Whilst it can be very, very expensive to hire a car with the hire companies fully comp insurance taken at the time of booking you can drive the vehicle without the worry of being ripped off when you return the vehicle. I am only speaking from my own experience when we hired vehicles from Alicante Airport companies a few years ago as we wanted to enjoy our Spanish holidays without the worry about the vehicle getting damaged.

I would recommend to anybody hiring a vehicle from a car hire company that do not take out their full comprehensive insurance is to take pictures of the vehicle condition and video the full condition of the vehicle before moving it. It can be a pain after arriving from your flight but it will be well worth it, sometimes it can be difficult to take pictures because of the way these companies park their cars. Once you inspect the vehicle and find any damage certainly don’t move it, return to the office where you collected the keys to raise your concerns, don’t let them fob you off all will be OK, usually it never is.

 Hopefully this post will assist others as well.

Regards 

 Jim

Kenbo

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:15am

Kenbo

Very helpful member

Posts: 999

799 helpful points

Location: La Florida

Joined: 6 Dec 2017

Posted: Fri Nov 12, 2021 7:15am

To follow on from Jim's findings and using my 20 years of experience hiring cars 3/4 times per year to get to our holiday home in La Florida.

There appears to be 4 levels of service

Picking a car up in the airport arrivals hall will definitely give you the most stressful experience out of them all, recently I picked one up from OK rental, the girl was aggressive, condescending and just thoroughly rude, I didn't accept any of her hard sell but others at either side of me were doing so, Centauro in the arrivals hall were also not nice to deal with and did the damage scam when we returned the car, annual excess insurance sorted that one out.

The next level is the airport operators just off the airport around the Torrellano area and require a shuttle bus to reach them, these appear to try to sell you their fully comprehensive insurance but do not push as hard if you decline.

Please note that if you do decline their insurance both of the above will want to take a hefty deposit from your credit card, dependent upon size of the car €900- €1600.

This next level is my preference, independent operators who meet you at the airport with your car and do not swipe your credit card for a deposit, also their quoted price is what you pay, no sneaky extras. As posted earlier, excellent experience with both Magnum and Lara cars but Lara operate a full to empty fuel policy and may be more useful for longer stays when you have the chance to use the full tank up, the cost of the full tank was fair. There will be other operators that work in this way too ( possibly Coys ?? ) but just giving my opinion of those used.

Finally there are the one man bands who rent out the older vehicles, nothing wrong with that if they are reliable but these usually pick you up and return you to the airport incurring app €100  in transfer costs, ultimately you could be paying in excess of the airport operators for an older car.

Also, currently there is shortage of hire cars, this makes late booking extremely difficult and prices are sky high.

My advice to all would be, secure your car early with a free cancellations operator, you can then flex this around if you see a better deal nearer your departure date, never pay anything upfront, always on the day and always purchase an annual car hire excess insurance policy, they are around £40 in the UK and worth every penny for peace of mind.

Just my opinion, hope it helps, Ken.

A big shout out for Lara cars here, we were returning to the airport on Wednesday and there was a road accident on the N332 which seriously delayed us to such a point that we were in danger of missing our flight to the UK, when this became apparent we called Lara to say that we would be late returning their car, they were very understanding and asked what we would do if we missed the flight, we would have wanted  to return to La Florida, they said they would do their very best to help and wouldn't have left us stranded, well done Lara.

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