Car Hire England

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We make bi-annual pilgrimages to the UK and hire cars for the week to ten days we are there. Until now, we have used a firm at www.carrentals.co.uk and I have recommended them to others here in the past. You used to pay online and get vouchers and they would provide full insurance cover unlike so many others.

Let me explain, this is a huge con in this industry. All cars are insured but traditionally you have been responsible for an excess. You could pay extra "CDW or Collision Damage Waiver" at the time of rental to remove this excess or reduce it to a small level. Today, the term CDW has been hijacked and even if CDW is included you are still liable for between £500 and £1000 - far too much for us to be happy with so we have to pay for the extra cover.

When you go online you find a wide variety of prices from the major companies. One week Gatwick to Gatwick in April,for the cheapest car is:-

Europcar £167.92 plus £123.27 for full insurance and 2nd driver = £291.19
Hertz £119.00 + £98.70 for some unspecified insurance = £217.70
Avis and Budget refuse to give a price for the insurance online and tell you that you can obtain it when you pick the car up which, given that it can cost nearly as much as the rental is totally unacceptable.

I am looking at a website www.autoescape.co.uk which implies that full insurance is available for £2 per day and is 'refundable' but there are no details on their website and they have not answered my email enquiry yet.

As you see, this is a massive confidence trick. A small bump could lead to huge costs that you are not insured for and, if you have pre-booked and pre-paid the car you have no alternative when you pick the car up but to take it or leave it. Worse, you cannot find out what the cost is before you have committed yourself.

Anyway, this is my problem but it isn't my battle. I need to find a company that is honest and transparent - and economical! Can anyone recommend a car hire company that can offer me a Gatwick service for a basic low cost car, for the odd week to two weeks, two drivers over 50 under 65 and clean licenses with full insurance?

Meanwhile folks, read that small print very carefully. I had a car six months ago that was scratched by others in a car park and it cost me €300 being my excess. I was lucky, excesses are often higher. I had believed that I was fully insured but on closer examination the document I signed declared that I had read and agreed to terms contained in a document that I had neither seen nor read. /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
Thanks David but the same problem there...[ QUOTE ]
Insurance is subject to an excess. An excess waiver may be available at an additional cost, please check with the branch

[/ QUOTE ]These people don't even tell you how big the excess is but typically it is between £500 and £1000. Nor do they tell us how much the full insurance is before booking online, which is the problem.
 
David,

Agree about the "racket" - I wonder if this is where they make their money, (a bit like the insurance that big stores push on you when you buy electrical goods - the insurance costs nearly as much as the goods).

i tend to use www.holidayautos.co.uk

their basic price says that it includes CDW, but you remain liable for the excess. They then offer an insurance policy for £2.50 per day which covers you if you experience "any" damage for which you have to pay the excess.

except that this insurance policy doesnt cover the underside or roof of the car, nor tyres or glass IIRC.

I have also used:

http://www.autoeurope.com/index.cfm?

whose rentals dont offer an option to insure against the excess.

On here a couple of months ago, somebody posted the following insurance policy:

http://www.insurance4carhire.com/indexPa...ID=1&pID=38

for £50 per year, this seems to cover damage where you have to pay the excess, and seems to be more comprehensive than holiday autos daily rate, (£2.50), in that it covers:

"Excess on damage to the rental vehicle including the undercarriage, Excess on theft, and damage to windows and tyres"

How good it is in terms of paying up is anybodys guess, but the same goes for any insurance I suppose.

I havent bought it yet because I keep thinking this is my last car hire for the foreseeable future. However, I'll be hiring a car for a few days in Portugal next week, and for 30 days in the UK in late April, so perhaps it's time to bite the bullet.

Hope this helps.

Richard
 
[ QUOTE ]
On here a couple of months ago, somebody posted the following insurance policy:

http://www.insurance4carhire.com/indexPa...ID=1&pID=38

for £50 per year, this seems to cover damage where you have to pay the excess, and seems to be more comprehensive than holiday autos daily rate, (£2.50), in that it covers:

"Excess on damage to the rental vehicle including the undercarriage, Excess on theft, and damage to windows and tyres"

How good it is in terms of paying up is anybodys guess, but the same goes for any insurance I suppose.


[/ QUOTE ]

Just read some of the terms:

Not valid if vehicle is rented from a location within 150km of usual residence.
• Rental limited to 31 continuous days on any one rental agreement

so not appropriate if you hire within 93.75 miles form "home".

which puts the kybosh on it for my 30 day hire from Manchester Airport, 6 miles from home! /forums/images/graemlins/mad.gif

Better read all the small print as well.

Richard
 
Richard, thanks, you have highlighted an alternative avenue for investigation. I am working on a google search for "car rental excess insurance". The first I have found, AtlasDirect does not permit any rental in your country of residence. It is worth searching and asking other if they have any experience of this. - Atlas, by the way, offer a choice of single hire or annual.

David
 
Following through that thread

http://www.economycarrentals.com

Seems to specialise in booking cars with no excess. But I can't see the small print, what do others think?

The price comparison is Hertz with probably (not certain) full insurance and 2nd driver £217.70 and economycarrentals £208.93

I suppose one would choose Hertz as the known brand, with that difference.

It is all a far, far, cry from £109, which is the typical headline price! Richard called this a 'racket'. I would argue that there is blatant and material deception and this is fraud. I wonder if one would win, in court? Any lawyers here to give an 'off the record' opinion?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Following through that thread

http://www.economycarrentals.com

Seems to specialise in booking cars with no excess. But I can't see the small print, what do others think?



[/ QUOTE ]

some small print:

https://www.economycarrentals.com/advise/advise_default.asp

"The FDW is not necessary to buy as EconomyCarRentals.com will refund any excess paid.

Exceptions to an All Inclusive Insurance
Charges for any of the damages below will be charged directly to the client, the most important are the following:
Antenna, trays, damage to car lock, loss or damage to keys, windshield wipers, mirrors, spare key and car jack, hubcap, lights, gas cap, warning triangles, damage to the upholstery of the car, extreme dirtiness in the car, underside damage, damage due to offences of traffic laws, tire punctures and burst tires, fuel errors, damage to child seats and baby seats, lack of electricity because of forgotten turn on electrical devices. The car rental company, in any case, is not obligated in replacing a flat tire or damages in music equipment, damages caused by client having used wrong kind of fuel, damages caused by off road driving, tow-away charges.
Some of our car rental partners offer an extra insurance to cover the above exceptions locally. Damage caused by drunk driving or negligent driving will never be excluded from the client's direct responsibilities.
In some locations there is an additional insurance also for Wheels/ Underside and glass (WUG), which can be purchased at the time of the booking. For your location, you will see all the available extras after having chosen your car category."


Looks like you would still need to pay the excess locally and recalim it from economy car rentals... so it's merely the equivalent of having the FDW insurance included in the price, ( i.e. the insurance that holiday autos offer at £2.50 per day).

I've just hired a Vauxhall Astra via Holiday Autos for 10 days. £199 including the £2.50 per day FDW waiver insurance, (National are the supplier in this instant and i think I got upgraded to a Sporty model - Sxi? It's very nice anyway, and a few people have been surprised at the price i.e. that it's so cheap.)

They also quote about £400 for the same car for 26 days from 26 April to 22 March.

Both of the above are pick up and drop off Manchester Airport.

Looking at the money saving expert thread, it seems that at least 2 people have successfully claimed back their excess from Holiday Autos, so it seems like it works.

Richard
 
Richard, I think you have found the best deal in holidayautos.co.uk The base price for their cheapest car is £113 which is uplifted with the DEW product and 2nd driver to £130.50 and is £70 less than direct booking Hertz and £178 less than Europcar. I haven't completed the purchase yet so I don't know which car hire company is being used. I will let this thread run over the weekend in case someone knows better!

You certainly seem to have found the deal with the fairest and most transparent insurance from all the ones I searched online - and the cheapest by far. Many thanks!

I note, however, that the exclusions include the underside and roof as well as the windscreen and tyres. While I can understand the need to stop reckless and deranged renters from trashing the car, it seems rather tough in those genuine no-fault situations where the costs are irrecoverable from a third party. For example, if a meteorite should pass through the car causing major damage the hirer would be liable for the whole cost up to the value of the car - potentially tens of thousands of pounds. That seems wrong - OK it is unlikely, but isn't that why we all take out insurance? Why is it that we cannot insure hire cars for such risks?
 
[ QUOTE ]
Following through that thread

http://www.economycarrentals.com

Seems to specialise in booking cars with no excess. But I can't see the small print, what do others think?



[/ QUOTE ]

Just booked a car, (Punto or similar), with the above from 3rd April to 6 April. Pick up Faro Airport, drop off, Lagos near the marina.

80 euros including 15 euros for 1 way trip... so about the same cost as holiday autos and auto europe, except that holiday autos couldnt confirm that a car would be available at the time of booking, and auto europe site suggests that you dont get told the one way drop off charge until after you have booked - seemed a lot of hassle, so I did it with the ones with a car available, and all charges clear and up front.

I may have missed a trick, but am comfortable with what I've got.

Seems like it's horses for courses.
 
Thanks, Richard, this has become a very useful thread. It would be good to try to share the scam of CDW as widely as possible - it is the only way to get these companies to be more transparent.

Talking of which, you need to be VERY careful about holiday insurance. Last November we had cases stolen on the Barcelona underground and put in a claim for £800 to AXA. AXA now use a contractor who use psychological techniques to screen claims - they claim 40% of claims repudiated!

See VFM, AXA's claims agent who claim 40% repudiation of claims

[ QUOTE ]
The Elements of New ERA Screening
Conversation Management
Many customers will have experienced a traumatic or upsetting event to prompt their claim and, if genuine customer service is to be provided, it is necessary to provide real empathy with their predicament. Conversation managers engage with the customer, never challenging the customer?s integrity, nor treating them like a question and answer machine. Managing a conversation does mean remaining in control; but there is a mountain of difference between being in control and being adversarial.
Applied Psychology
The process uses applied psychology techniques that give claims handlers trained in New ERA an understanding of the psychology of communication and in particular the skills to elicit and detect deceptive communication. This element is based on the simple principle that the genuine claimants will have no difficulty recalling details about something that really happened, while, in contrast, the fraudster will struggle. At the same time New ERA deploys hidden or meta messages throughout the conversation which are aimed at comforting and reassuring the genuine customer whilst unnerving those making inappropriate claims. The effect on those with dishonest intent means they will have to dig deep for information that does not exist and be forced to create more lies that will inevitably undermine their story.
Behavioral Analysis Tools
'Behavioral Assessment Record' - an aide-memoir/proforma which assists the claim handler in assessing specific areas of behaviour and documenting the prevalence of those behaviours (both verbal and non verbal) expressed by the claimant throughout the claim. These behaviours are often significant and will provide real, useable evidence.
For an example see 'Behavioral Indicators'
The 'TimeLine' - completed by the claims handler is a written and graphical record of the event and the circumstances surrounding it. The 'Timeline' enables the claims handler to quickly and accurately record what is being said about the claim, and assist them to identify anomalies and inconsistencies in the story. For an example see 'Example Timeline'

To see how the claims handler delivers New ERA see 'New ERA Screening Delivery'

The Benefits of New ERA
The principles of New ERA remain the same whatever the 'product', but its application can have the following distinct and proven benefits:

Reducing claims handling costs
Improving customer service
Creating a customer focused barrier against opportunistic fraudsters
Preventing and managing volume fraud/risk
Reducing the current lifecycle of a claim
Increasing clients' competitive advantage
Improving accuracy when filtering applications for loans, credit cards, etc.
Reducing legal and investigation costs by early, accurate establishment of the facts surrounding an accident
Limiting liability in mortgage and employment protection claims
Reducing the cost to employers of employee sickness
Consultancy on all risk matters including, compliance, designing and building a risk management strategy

The Application of New ERA
Stage One - Risk Prevention: front-end risk assessment
Genuine claims fast tracked for payment while those considered high risk are directed to staff trained to deliver New ERA for further assessment.
Stage Two - Risk Management: secondary screening for risk and desktop investigation
Skilled staff carry out the New ERA conversation and manage a claim to its appropriate conclusion. Genuine claims will be forwarded for prompt payment, with the remainder investigated and managed from the desktop and either withdrawn or repudiated.
Stage Three - Cost Reduction: field investigation management (where applicable)
Claims which require field investigation will be few in number but these will be cases where fieldwork is truly required to progress the investigation. At the same time, as a result of the desktop investigation that has preceeded the referral to fieldwork, these cases will be focussed, directed and managed and will therefore have a greatly improved chance of reaching an appropriate conclusion.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
VFM Services was originally designed to improve the process of managing claims for lost and stolen travellers cheques at Thomas Cook Financial Services. The results achieved at Thomas Cook were 40% of all medium to high value claims repudiated, 18% of claimants within this band retreating from their claim voluntarily, no indication of customer dissatisfaction and annual savings of £4.5M. Since these results, VFM has been achieving major success rates across the wide range of organisations which form its client base:.....

[/ QUOTE ]

My claim was one of the 40% they wanted to repudiate and I can tell you it was one of the most distressing periods of my life. They used psycholgical techniques to make me, a genuine claimant, feel like a criminal. I only found out that they use VFM towards the very end and then I realised what was happening (they emailed me with an odd domain name, I did a whois lookup and traced the ownership back to VFM then looked at their website above).

Do not get yourself in any situation where you are insured by AXA. Claims are a nightmare, very disturbing.
 
Update. We took delivery of the car booked via Holiday Autos, from Alamo/National (seems to be the same company?) at Gatwick. First of all, we were delighted to find that we had paid for a Ford Ka without air con and they had upgraded us to a Peugeot 207. But.....

They tried to overcharge us by about £50 for adding an extra driver - the amount they insisted on was much more than quoted by Holiday Autos and it was only when I insisted on them checking online that they agreed, and charged the correct amount.

Then it turns out that contrary to Holiday Autos information, you do not take the tank back full but empty. You are charged for a full tank and get no money back for unused fuel!!

Our tank was well off full (but do you struggle back to the desk and have an argument about seven or eight pounds after a flight?).

The whole idea of taking the tank back empty can have only one purpose; for the rental company to obtain money by deception. If they behave like that for a few pounds worth of fuel, does one want to do business with them? Sadly, I suspect that they will all be doing it soon unless the public refuse to put up with it.

Note:--You could say that overall we didn't do badly as we had the use of a much better car - however, pleasant though that was, we don't spend our money on anything other than the most basic cars, we treat them simply as a necessary way to get from A to B. I added that information to remind people that it is worth booking the smallest car when flying into LHR or LGW as not many of the very small cars are kept there and there is a good chance of an upgrade.
 
[ QUOTE ]
Update. We took delivery of the car booked via Holiday Autos, from Alamo/National (seems to be the same company?) at Gatwick. First of all, we were delighted to find that we had paid for a Ford Ka without air con and they had upgraded us to a Peugeot 207. But.....

They tried to overcharge us by about £50 for adding an extra driver - the amount they insisted on was much more than quoted by Holiday Autos and it was only when I insisted on them checking online that they agreed, and charged the correct amount.

Then it turns out that contrary to Holiday Autos information, you do not take the tank back full but empty. You are charged for a full tank and get no money back for unused fuel!!


[/ QUOTE ]

I have had cars from Europcar and Alamo/National/Guerin via Holiday Autos, and have been upgraded each time. In Portugal was charged correctly for 2nd Driver, in fact I paid at time of booking on the web.... perhaps if you ask for a 2nd driver at the time of taking the car you get charged the Hire Company rate, rather than the Holiday Autos web rate. i have always been given the opportunity to return the car full... in fact on the 3 occasions I have used Holiday Autos, the hire company has advised that it is returned full.

Sounds like you were the victim of one office trying to up its income, rather than a Holiday Autos scam, (based on my experiences both Portugal and UK).

Not sure if that makes you feel any better /forums/images/graemlins/frown.gif
 
[ QUOTE ]
Sounds like you were the victim of one office trying to up its income, rather than a Holiday Autos scam, (based on my experiences both Portugal and UK)

[/ QUOTE ] Without doubt it is Alamo/National, not Holiday Autos that are responsible - I did not mean to give the impression otherwise.

[ QUOTE ]
Not sure if that makes you feel any better

[/ QUOTE ]

The damages are not huge so I am not in a bad mood about it but I think it is worth pointing these things out as we are trying to compare like with like and this is clearly a deception that needs to be exposed. It is very common on the Balearics and other holiday places but this is the first time I have experienced it in the UK or from a major renter.

My pre-paid booking voucher stated that I wanted an extra driver but that this would be chargeable locally. No price was stated on the voucher however the price was given on the Holiday Autos website and, as I said earlier, was honoured by Alamo/National when I complained.

I told the Alamo office that I did not like returning with an empty tank and was told that that is how they do it. I was not given a choice. From what you say, it is worth insisting - after all, it is clearly dishonest as you cannot possibly return a car with an empty tank given that in reality you are driving a strange car to an airport in unknown traffic and you have to leave a good fuel reserve in case you get caught in traffic, diverted or simply underestimate the fuel consumption of a strange car.

It is yet another scam, in my view, deliberately aimed to taking money from customers over an above the amount quoted, without giving any benefit. Put that way, it is theft. If you are doing business with a company that is happy to steal £10 or £20 of your money without qualms, you can be sure that they are not beyond stealing larger sums so cannot be trusted. One really ought not to sign the terms and conditions of hire, unscrutinised, from a company that is blatantly dishonest and has already stolen from you. Those reading this have been warned. Alamo and National are the problem, not Holiday Autos.
 
I think 'holiday autos' are agents, rather than principals, though they appear to have favourites (Alamo . . .)

Put AGE = 71 in the box and you get an interesting choice at Heathrow. The cheapest car I could hire would be a Renault Espace. Now, that won't even fit into my garage! The smallest I could hire would be a Minicooper - £350 a week or so. They obviously don't think old people have heavy feet . . .

So, agism (oer 70, or 0ver 75 for others) is another issue which writes off a lot of suppliers. Thanks for raising this thread. Very interesting. Hertz have come up (surprisingly) best value for money for us.
 
Yes, Holiday Autos are the agent. They are especially useful because they search various rental companies, check availability, tend to be the cheapest and you can pay in advance. I like going to the counter with a pre-paid voucher in my hand as I am guaranteed a car.

[ QUOTE ]
So, ageism (oer 70, or 0ver 75 for others) is another issue which writes off a lot of suppliers. Thanks for raising this thread. Very interesting. Hertz have come up (surprisingly) best value for money for us.

[/ QUOTE ] This is a big problem and is grossly unfair - or is it? In the UK you only need to make a self-declaration as to fitness to drive. In Spain you have to take regular reaction tests after (I think) age 70. It seems to me that the car hire companies must have had problems with older drivers - maybe older drivers tend, as a group, to be confused when given a new car in a strange place and maybe there are actuarial data to support the decision not to offer a service? It seems unlikely that they would not wish to sell to a huge, expanding and wealthy section of the population unless there was good reason?

Suppose one gets an IAM pass and has a medical, does that make a difference with any hirers, I wonder? Worth looking into?
 
The issue is fitness to drive, and that does corelate with age. The best way of policing this is probably self declaration, but with a call for a deposit which is forfeited if there is an event, unless you can demostrate you are fit to drive thru a couple of simple tests (eyesight, spell something backwards, reaction test).

Interestingly they don't change insurance or hire rates depending on gender, whereas many comprehensive driving insurance policies charge a 5% to 10% premium for women.
 
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