If it sounds too good to be true...car hire.

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Just paid £2.88 for a days car hire from Faro airport in March. Can't see any of the usual tricks regarding fuel, insurance etc. but I cannot believe the price so I'm expecting to be hit with some sort of hidden charge. Not desperate for the car so I'll walk away (literally) if things get too silly.
Anyone got first hand experience of this sort of philanthropy from Portuguese car rental firms?
 
Not an unusaully low amount have had similar charges in Spain and Greece. I expect you will get 15 minutes of the hard sales talk to take out fully comprehensive insurance with no collision waiver damage excess. Depending on how much it is it may be worth paying for it or just sticking to your guns.
 
jordanbasset said:
Not an unusaully low amount have had similar charges in Spain and Greece. I expect you will get 15 minutes of the hard sales talk to take out fully comprehensive insurance with no collision waiver damage excess. Depending on how much it is it may be worth paying for it or just sticking to your guns.
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Make sure you have your own collision damage insurance for hire cars and when they tell you that the excess is £9k (which is the highest I've been told so far) then you can tell them where to go.
 
Where are you staying? If you have to walk away, a taxi to the station and the train takes you fairly close to most places on the Algarve. You can then shop around for a car where you're staying.
 
Richard10002 said:
Where are you staying? If you have to walk away, a taxi to the station and the train takes you fairly close to most places on the Algarve. You can then shop around for a car where you're staying.
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On a boat in Faro marina. Car is for a semi-whimsical property viewing so no great pressure. I'm just baffled as to how this could be remotely economically feasible for the hire firm. I'd have happily paid 10 times more.
 
I paid about fifteen times that amount a couple of years ago for a week. I saw a rate of about 29 euro a few weeks later for 7 days, not too far above your figure. Perhaps they are having to pay to store a glut during the winter and you are saving them money by taking one away. :D

Check it thoroughly though. I picked one up which was squeezed close to the next car and in a shaded area. I took pictures of everything, on, under, inside, boot, tyres etc. as I normally do. Even so, I almost missed a slightly dusty patch in shadow. It was all flattened over quite a large area but no scratches. Odometer was also out by about 20km. I reckon staff had been using it and hoped to blame me for the repair. I returned to the desk and had the damage marked up before moving the car. Nobody seemed surprised and didn't even come out to look at the car. Perhaps they were hoping to repair a car on the cheap by renting it out as undamaged, so worth checking.
 
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Had a similar (not quite as good) deal in Croatia. No problem with the car, in fact they only had a Skoda Octavia instead of the booked Polo class. Great car, no issues, but it took an hour to get out of the office - in addition to the paperwork and very thorough inspection, they tried very hard to upgrade us to Satnav, Mifi lease, etc.

Never break anything though. I did have a flat tire on a rental (in the UK) once and got charged well over £100 for having the trouble and dirty hands, due to not having taken the extra insurance (I never do - only time it bit me so far). Then had to grump at their destination town office and explain to them that I was not going to drive back 6 hours on the emergency bicycle tire they had for a spare (with associated speed limit). Eventually they relented and gave me another car.
 
It's probably legit.

I paid even less to hire a car in Faro last January (~18 eur for 7 days from memory).
They didn't charge me for anything extra (although I was worried like you are that they try to find some way to pad the bill).



I guess it's because it's the low season and for whatever reason they can't shut down completely.... (obvio
 
When my son and I wanted to hire a car from Faro we read some real horror stories about 'cheap' car hire and the extras - we went for a n expensive one and could not have had better service " just leave it there" no examination just courteous service. We didn't have to leave a credit card either.
 
Quiddle said:
Just paid £2.88 for a days car hire from Faro airport in March. Can't see any of the usual tricks regarding fuel, insurance etc. but I cannot believe the price so I'm expecting to be hit with some sort of hidden charge. Not desperate for the car so I'll walk away (literally) if things get too silly.
Anyone got first hand experience of this sort of philanthropy from Portuguese car rental firms?
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What company is it? Friends recently hired a car at Alicante Airport from an internet site. When they got to the airport they had the choice of the fully comprehensive insurance with no excess or handing over the credit card for €3500 deposit. They handed over the card. Usually when this happens they just reserve the deposit. This lot actually took the full amount off the card. Took two months to get the money back. Can't remember the name of the offending company right now but I'll now it when I see it.
 
Jeannius said:
What company is it? Friends recently hired a car at Alicante Airport from an internet site. When they got to the airport they had the choice of the fully comprehensive insurance with no excess or handing over the credit card for €3500 deposit. They handed over the card. Usually when this happens they just reserve the deposit. This lot actually took the full amount off the card. Took two months to get the money back. Can't remember the name of the offending company right now but I'll now it when I see it.
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They specifically say they will place a1500 euro hold on my card but will not take any money so that seems clear enough.
 
We had similarly cheap car hire from Murcia airport whilst at YPC Cartegena. It seems it's a winter norm, especially if you use travel supermarket or similar comparison sites. They have loads of cars in airport lots with no tourist trade to speak of, so discount the rental fees just to have some income, presumably to offset costs. We had a Ford Focus for 3 weeks for about €100.
By the way it is usually cheaper to buy the excess protection online before you go, but be aware you are buying a 'refund' insurance policy. You have the excess blocked on your card at the point of hire. If you ding it, you're covered, but the company will then charge the excess to your card and you can then claim it back off your insurance. So make sure you can cover the excess on your card just in case. Cover offered at the hire desk negates this but comes at a premium.
 
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