Car Rental - Is this normal?

largepants

I recently took a holiday to the continent where I flew into Faro Airport. I had a car booked with Europcar through carrentals.com. I was informed at the desk when collecting the car that they required a despoit of e12,500 - the price of the car. Thet assured me that this was normal. I point blank refused to pay such a deposit (because I didn't have it). They claimed that the only other way to get the car was to purchase their car insurance. Again I refused. The lady behind the counter then called her manager and they came down to e1200 desposit which I still thought was excessive. However I agreed because I wanted to be on my way.

Now I've rented cars before but I've never come across this before. Is this normal or were they just trying to get me to buy their insurance?

BuffyBot

Not really enough info to go on, but my first thought is was the booking inclusive of damage waiver etc?

If not, then they'll normally look for a large deposit etc.

Recently, I booked a car at Dublin Airport: even with the standard cover, a deposit of 10% of the car's value was put on the card. Rates and conditions can vary wildly, so check the small print on your agreement first.

dudara

You always need to read the T&Cs first to see what is included. Particularly with the more "budget" operations.

L1011

There are a huge number of reasons to always stick with the Big 3. This is one of them. Even the dodgiest franchise operators for them have to stick by their rules or they lose the name.

techdiver

I find car rental in Europe a complete joke when compared to the US.

I have rented many times in the US without needing to pay a deposit and this is even when renting "expensive" cars such as a Chevy Camaro, etc.

I rented a van in Dublin one weekend and had to pay a large deposit.

Even the general prices are so much cheaper in the US. Why is this?

Tea 1000

techdiver wrote: »

I find car rental in Europe a complete joke when compared to the US.

I have rented many times in the US without needing to pay a deposit and this is even when renting "expensive" cars such as a Chevy Camaro, etc.

I rented a van in Dublin one weekend and had to pay a large deposit.

Even the general prices are so much cheaper in the US. Why is this?

Because cars are a hell of a lot cheaper to buy over there.
Germany is one of the cheapest in Europe to rent also.
I've never had to pay that kind of deposit though. As said above, you should at least have the basic insurance when booking the car, with an excess usually of less than 2 grand. And the extra CDW is a cost to reduce the excess. Never heard of the first option you were quoted.
Often though I find these car rental brokers can sometimes be a bit of a pain with the details like that, better to get the quote from them to see which car crowd are giving you the best price then go to Europecar or whoever directly and suck up the €20 or so difference to book directly with them.

gramar

I've rented all over Europe and the only deposit has been card authorisation for not leaving the tank back full if you choose not to buy the fuel from them. I always get a full damage waiver. Paying 12500 for a deposit is absurd.

Go with Hertz or Europcar. I don't think they're expensive and they are far more transparent that these other chancers.

A mate of mine rented through one of these guys in Madrid for 15e a day. I told him it would work out triple that once they added this charge and that charge. We didn't get to find out as in the end after queueing for an hour and with loads of people still in front of him he went to one of the big boys was was away within 10 minutes and it didn't cost that much either.

ScottSF

I would be curious to find out more myself as this seems very odd. All the car hires I've done in Europe include the basic required insurance in the price quote. How can you rent without insurance as you said you refused to buy their insurance? Would would happen if you had an accident? I would go back to that website and read their fine print. Perhaps it says that you have to buy insurance at the rental counter on pick-up and it is not included in their (misleadingly lower) rates?

Usually the CDW is included though not liability which is required in the U.S. Then you are offered the option to buy their excess waiver (and other insurance options) to bring down your out of pocket from a few thousand to several hundred or zero EUR. I've never seen a car hire contract stating that they will put a hold on a credit card of the full price of the car. I would guess that most people would never have enough of a credit limit to allow this anyway?

rubberdiddies

ive rented cars in Spain many times over the last few years using Goldcar generally.

each year, because I know i'll most likely be travelling more than once in the year I take out 'car hire excess' insurance from an online company which covers any car rentals for the entire year.

because I do this and dont take out Goldcars Insurance, they hold a deposit on my credit card. This deposit used to be €300 but this year they doubled it to €600.

it never actually appears on my Credit Card statement as it is just reserved.

the figure above of €12,500 would immediately alert me to never using that company again. Obviously they had some discretion by bringing it down to €1200 but even that is far too much.