Firefly car rental Malaga

Speedtrap

i have a family member renting from Firefly (formerly known as Advantage ) at Malaga Airport. It has been a bad experience from day 1. They use fear and bullying to sell add ons at the booking desk despite having collision damage waiver from Ireland and following meticulous procedures with online booking. One of the car users actually works for an Irish insurer so they are well versed.
They got a car with NO air conditioning for a time when the temp. is easily over 35c.
Completely unsatisfactory experiences with Firefly. Avoid at all costs. Tripadvisor is weighed down with complaints about this outfit

Eponymous

Why do folks only seem to research AFTER they return or have been stung by crappy service providers?

Speedtrap

Eponymous wrote: »

Why do folks only seem to research AFTER they return or have been stung by crappy service providers?

To warn others...obvious ?

keithclancy

To be fair, I rent cars A LOT .. and most Irish people are just not very direct and think they are being bullied.

You just say what you mean and you have no problems.

Also when picking up the car take all the time you need to inspect it for damage that isn't marked on the sheet, go back and get them to mark anything you are unsure of.

Take pictures of the vehicle with your phone, Front, Back, Left, Right and also the Windows.

Do the same on drop off and make sure you get them to sign off on delivery.

If you are prone to accidents you can get an annual policy that reduces your excess to zero:
insurance4carhire.com

Also I've had the experience that they do not have the car available that's on my booking voucher and they've said I need to pay for an 'upgrade'

In every case I stood my ground and got a larger car for free since they could not deliver on the agreement.

zagmund

It's not always that easy though Keith - we picked up a car from Sixt recently and (apart from being a fraction of the size of what we were expecting despite ordering their largest station wagon, but that's another days story) they parked it in a handicapped space while handing over the paperwork. Several locals advised us strongly to move it quickly. The car, meantime, was covered in dust which meant that you couldn't tell what was a dust stain and what was a scratch without examining the entire car (in a handicapped zone, on the side of the road) and that would have taken 20 minutes. Meantime, their list of existing damage was a little fuzzy - there was something about "damage to middle of bumper" which was actually a series of nicks all along the bumper. It must have been 10 or 15 individual nicks and wasn't limited to the middle of the bumper. I called it out to the person who just said "yeah, yeah, that's what it means"

Prior to all this, the office manager (who handled our paperwork) had been really nice until it got to the insurance stage. I must have told her 4 or 5 separate times that I was *not* interested in additional insurance but she kept going. And going. And then gave me a car with a load of nicks and damage that were summarised in 3 or 4 lines on the firm. And this was with what is regarded as one of the better/less dubious rental companies out there.

z

zagmund

"Do the same on drop off and make sure you get them to sign off on delivery." - this also doesn't necessarily work - we left our car back in the drop off zone in Geneva with nobody around. By the time we had walked to the desk inside the airport 10 minutes later anything could have happened to the car and it would still be on our agreement. I'm guessing here, but I'm pretty sure that even getting the guy in the return car park to sign off means nothing as they can easily say that they found something subsequently that wasn't spotted at first.

Check out the other forums - car hire across the globe has a terrible reputation, so it's not just the Irish.

z

keithclancy

zagmund wrote: »

"Do the same on drop off and make sure you get them to sign off on delivery." - this also doesn't necessarily work - we left our car back in the drop off zone in Geneva with nobody around. By the time we had walked to the desk inside the airport 10 minutes later anything could have happened to the car and it would still be on our agreement. I'm guessing here, but I'm pretty sure that even getting the guy in the return car park to sign off means nothing as they can easily say that they found something subsequently that wasn't spotted at first.

Check out the other forums - car hire across the globe has a terrible reputation, so it's not just the Irish.

z

Have rented cars of multiple companies in Netherlands, Germany, UK, France, Spain, Portugal, Greece, Curacao, Sri Lanka, Belgium, Malta, The US and some other with multiple companies.

I wouldn't take a dirty car anyway as it cannot be inspected

I rarely do drop off outside of office hours unless it's a company i use on a regular basis (even then if there is an issue I just use my excess insurance)

Sorry, if you allow yourself to be rushed into these situations of course your going to have an issue.

If the car was parked in a disabled space I wouldn't have accepted the car either, they should have it washed in a space possible for inspection.

One experience I had in Amterdam was with Firefly, it was in a dark part of the car park so I go them to move it.

End of the day if you are unhappy with the situation on pickup just state your problem.

zagmund

"if you allow yourself to be rushed" - there was no rush.

I turned up at the allotted time. They delivered the car, it wasn't satisfactory. I told them it wasn't satisfactory. I told them why it wasn't satisfactory (in as much as I could determine on the side of the road, with family in tow in mid-afternoon boiling heat with no shelter). I wasn't in any particular rush to get where I was going, but that doesn't mean I had an hour to fart about with them. At the end of the conversation there was nothing written down to indicate extra damage to the car, but I had told them.

By way of explanation they claimed that the boss had washed the car that morning because the normal guy was out sick, and the boss (not being used to such menial tasks) had made a mess of it. This may be true, it may be spin. Either way, there was no other car (or so they claimed) to give me. It was this car or nothing. I didn't realistically have a choice.

z

Speedtrap

They had bought their cover CDW before departure. The Firefly desk seemingly like the Monty Python sketch "I wish to make a complaint"

keithclancy

zagmund wrote: »

"if you allow yourself to be rushed" - there was no rush.

I turned up at the allotted time. They delivered the car, it wasn't satisfactory. I told them it wasn't satisfactory. I told them why it wasn't satisfactory (in as much as I could determine on the side of the road, with family in tow in mid-afternoon boiling heat with no shelter). I wasn't in any particular rush to get where I was going, but that doesn't mean I had an hour to fart about with them. At the end of the conversation there was nothing written down to indicate extra damage to the car, but I had told them.

By way of explanation they claimed that the boss had washed the car that morning because the normal guy was out sick, and the boss (not being used to such menial tasks) had made a mess of it. This may be true, it may be spin. Either way, there was no other car (or so they claimed) to give me. It was this car or nothing. I didn't realistically have a choice.

z

You had a choice, you could have gone back to their office to discuss the matter, but you didn't want to spend time resolving the problem and accepted the wrong car in an unsatisfactory condition.

Guarantee if you stayed there a car would have appeared magically (sometimes they'll try to keep it back for a desk rental)

Polly Sonic

It's not only Firefly, I find Malaga airport in general the worst for car hire, pushy and expensive. Book online and you will avoid all that.

Eponymous

Speedtrap wrote: »

To warn others...obvious ?

No. I asked why do folks only do research when they return which confirms what they have already found out, not why do they post.

Tim76

Just had an awful experience with these guys at Malaga airport. Very rude & pushy with the add-ons. Told us we would be charged €130 per scratch & when we checked the car it was already covered in scratches. When I asked the girl at the desk if the car had been checked for scratches previously she said that it mustn't have been checked after the last user because they upgraded to the higher level insurance!

Anyway brought the car pack in perfect condition & with a full tank. Checked my invoice today when I got home & they have charged me 50% extra for god only knows what. I've tried to contact them through their website but it looks like it is designed to discourage any kind of after sales service.

Firefly are rip off merchant & avoid at all costs.