** Vehicle Hire queries **

seanin4711

anyone recommend one for this purpose and get rid shortly after,
thanks

coylemj

You'd still have to pay the €30 Govt tax.

Some rental companies will accept a debit card but you either have to buy their expensive supplementary insurance or (if you decline the insurance), they deduct the excess from your account and refund it after you return the car undamaged.

antix80

I often wonder why people have such an aversion to owning a credit card. It does essentially the same as a debit card without the inconvenience of hotels and car hire companies putting a large hold against your bank balance that takes weeks to get released.

Slippin Jimmy

antix80 wrote: »

I often wonder why people have such an aversion to owning a credit card. It does essentially the same as a debit card without the inconvenience of hotels and car hire companies putting a large hold against your bank balance that takes weeks to get released.

Probably of the fear of knowing it's there. A person I know got it for the above reason. After a while they used it to purchase stuff that was beyond their means.

Ponster

Make sure that you get one with no annual fee so that it doesn't cost you a penny to just leave it alone once you're back from your holidays.

HcksawJimDuggan

Ponster wrote: »

Make sure that you get one with no annual fee so that it doesn't cost you a penny to just leave it alone once you're back from your holidays.

Is the government levy of €30 not applied to all credit cards issued in Ireland?

Caranica

Ponster wrote: »

Make sure that you get one with no annual fee so that it doesn't cost you a penny to just leave it alone once you're back from your holidays.

Stamp duty is payable annually on credit cards so there's no free cards.

gabe1977

I recently hired a car from budget car hire using my visa debit card.
Didn't take out any of their extra insurance nor was there a deposit held.
Don't know did the girl at the booking desk make a mistake or is this their policy but that was my experience

Xcellor

Get credit card
Get sensible limit
Set up 100% repayment with direct debit

No interest is charged and no fear of building up a balance.

Apart from the unavoidable 30 euro already mentioned what is so scary?

Xcellor

gabe1977 wrote: »

I recently hired a car from budget car hire using my visa debit card.
Didn't take out any of their extra insurance nor was there a deposit held.
Don't know did the girl at the booking desk make a mistake or is this their policy but that was my experience

Some companies make exceptions. I hired a car on one of the greek islands and gave a prepaid card... But the likes or Hertz etc this won't work. Also the car I received was a piece of ****.

gabe1977

Xcellor wrote: »

Some companies make exceptions. I hired a car on one of the greek islands and gave a prepaid card... But the likes or Hertz etc this won't work. Also the car I received was a piece of ****.

I've used budget every year for last 4 years and this year the car was while still a fresh car was definitely well below the usual standard. Tyres just about legal and bodywork with lots of scratches and 2 big dents.
However with some of the horror stories of some of the other companies of charging cards for damage not caused by the hirer I always stick with budget as I've never had an issue with them

coylemj

gabe1977 wrote: »

I recently hired a car from budget car hire using my visa debit card.
Didn't take out any of their extra insurance nor was there a deposit held.
Don't know did the girl at the booking desk make a mistake or is this their policy but that was my experience

This probably applies to a specific Budget operation so it might be be worth stating where - in a lot of cases it's a local franchise and the same rules won't apply in other Budget operations.

You said in a later post (#12 above) that the car had lots of scratches. Which suggests that there is no excess and they don't care about minor damage.

This sounds similar to some of the local companies in the Canaries which get very positive recommendations in the Vehicle Hire Queries thread. There is no excess so they will accept payment in cash and they don't try to sell you any additional insurance. The result is that when you pick up the car, you ignore any existing scratches because when you bring it back, nobody will be bothered if you've picked up a few more.

LillySV

U need a credit card, don’t get caught abroad and find out the hire crowd won’t give u the car without it! I had this happen to me before!! My partner had the credit card and I thought I could be the driver using her card.... they said no... the driver also has to be the owner of the card! So I had to insure her on the car too to be allowed use her card (even though she didn’t want to drive!) .... they wouldn’t accept debit

blastman

Any recommendations for car hire in the UK? Looking for something small and cheap for four days or so, won't be doing too much driving in it. I've already got my excess insurance, so won't be taking theirs.

LillySV

blastman wrote: »

Any recommendations for car hire in the UK? Looking for something small and cheap for four days or so, won't be doing too much driving in it. I've already got my excess insurance, so won't be taking theirs.

I can tell ya that I’ve had issues with easyrent in uk, and europcar elsewhere so I wouldn’t advise them. I’ve never had problems with sixt so would advise them

SusanC10

Has anyone booked Car Hire with Aer Lingus and used their Avios Points to get a lower price ?

If I look at Prices on the Aer Lingus website, the quote is €50 higher but includes Free Additional Driver (which we would need).
However, if I go through using Avios Points which brings you through to the Avios Site and the quote is €50 lower but no mention whatsoever of Additional Driver.

Not sure which to go for. Tried phoning the number on the website but on hold too long.

If anyone has experience of this, please advise.

towger

I booked a car in the US via Avios ( it was with Avis ).
Wife was covered to drive also ( don't know if just spouse can be the extra drived, or can be anybody ). Not sure if you are interested but the necessary insurance was included too. Overall I was very happy with the process.

SusanC10

towger wrote: »

I booked a car in the US via Avios ( it was with Avis ).
Wife was covered to drive also ( don't know if just spouse can be the extra drived, or can be anybody ). Not sure if you are interested but the necessary insurance was included too. Overall I was very happy with the process.

Thank you ! Yes, with Avis. Did you need to do anything "active" to add your wife ? Or was it just included ?

SusanC10

Gave them another call there now and got through.

Apparently the Free Additional Driver with Avios is for USA only not Europe. So would be better with Aer Lingus website and save my points for something else.

towger

SusanC10 wrote: »

Gave them another call there now and got through.

Apparently the Free Additional Driver with Avios is for USA only not Europe. So would be better with Aer Lingus website and save my points for something else.

Good thing you checked.
Thanks for posting back, that is valuable information to know.

Yamanoto

Booking cars with Avios is generally a poor use of miles & you can be sure Aer Club / EI will be among the least competitive offerings available.

Booking Avis through BA Executive Club will give you an additional driver, wherever you choose to rent from.

https://production.rent-at-avis.com/avisonline/gb/avis_ba.nsf/c/AvisPreferred

Kopparberg Strawberry and Lime

Howdy all

Looking to do a car hire one way as above

Looking around on the main sites like Enterprise etc come back approx 660 dollars when fees and damage waivers included

Looking online and looking at Skyscanner more specifically and I'm finding deals from the likes of national etc for 259 all in including fees and damage waivers.

A deal like that with national or Alamo booked through easy rent cars.com

I just want to know if anybody here has experience using these sites and how trusty they are ? Have hired in USA before with Enterprise directly because they had a very good offer at the time but not they are near most expensive.

Looking for a big car not small to accommodate people + bags etc. And something a bit American like the F-150 I had the last time !

Any advice welcome

MayoForSam

RecordGo in Spain (Malaga) - don't anyone use these shysters whatever you do. I rented a car for a week, some minor damage I noted at the start (2 paint scratches), took pics but they didn't note it on the booking agreement (they don't record any damage less than 4cm in size apparently).

Nice car, no issues, not one extra mark during the week. We had to return it early morning to catch our return flight, just dropped the keys back to their office.

As soon as we touched down in Dublin, I noticed not one but two emails from them, sent about 20 minutes after I dropped the car back with a claim for damages totaling 700 Euro (2 separate invoices)!! 1200 euro pre-approved on my credit card so no comeback there. I've emailed them, still waiting for photographic evidence of the damage. I have car hire excess insurance so I shouldn't be out of pocket but this is totally wrong. Lesson learned, avoid like the plague.

coylemj

MayoForSam wrote: »

RecordGo in Spain (Malaga) - don't anyone use these shysters whatever you do.

It's a bit late now but if you had searched for them by name in this thread alone, you would have come across these consecutive posts from August 2018.

Poster Dinariuus had a link to a Ryanair car hire offer but was unsure which rental company was involved so he posted the link here and asked. Poster k1234565 responded....

k123456 wrote: »

RECORDGO

Dinarius wrote: »

Thanks.

Quick search on Trustpilot and TripAdvisor shows they have uniformly appalling reviews.

Back to the drawing board, I think. (Though most people only go on the web to complain, admittedly.)

https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=107721952&postcount=729

Allinall

I suppose it's the luck of the draw.

I've used RecordGo twice a year for the last 6 years and have never had an issue.

Always declined their insurance as have excess insurance separately.

Moyglish

Currently wanting to hire a care for a week or so from Knock airport.

If I want to pay for it online but the main driver is someone else, can I use my card details to pay for it and any fuel costs, insurance costs on the day even if I'm not the main driver?

I want to pay for it for someone arriving to Ireland, I don't want them to have to pay or have the financial burden, but I'm worried that on the day the car hire company will insist on all payments been made via the drivers named cards, whereas I want to pay for it all but won't be the driver, will this be possible or will I run into problems?

Ponster

I believe that all what you say is possible. There was a time in the past certainly when the card used to book the car had to be the same one used to collect it but I've not ran into that for a few years now.

I regularly book cars for my wife, pay in full with insurance, and she picks it up at the other end, no charge (Cork & Dublin). I do seem to remember that they still expect her to have a credit-card in her name which is scanned but no charge is taken.

As ever with these types of questions, best find out who offers car hire in Knock and give them a call to confirm.

Quackster

Moyglish wrote: »

Currently wanting to hire a care for a week or so from Knock airport.

If I want to pay for it online but the main driver is someone else, can I use my card details to pay for it and any fuel costs, insurance costs on the day even if I'm not the main driver?

I want to pay for it for someone arriving to Ireland, I don't want them to have to pay or have the financial burden, but I'm worried that on the day the car hire company will insist on all payments been made via the drivers named cards, whereas I want to pay for it all but won't be the driver, will this be possible or will I run into problems?

The person who books the car has to be the person who rents and collects the car. So you will have to add the other person as an additional driver (even if they will be doing all the driving and probably at an extra fee) and they will have to be with you when you collect the car as ye both will have to produce you driving licences.

If you won't be drinking the car, it would be much easier (and probably cheaper) for the other person to just book the car.

EverythingGood

Quackster wrote: »

The person who books the car has to be the person who rents and collects the car. So you will have to add the other person as an additional driver (even if they will be doing all the driving and probably at an extra fee) and they will have to be with you when you collect the car as ye both will have to produce you driving licences.

If you won't be drinking the car, it would be much easier (and probably cheaper) for the other person to just book the car.

Drinking??:D:D:D:D:D

Sully

Ponster wrote: »

I believe that all what you say is possible. There was a time in the past certainly when the card used to book the car had to be the same one used to collect it but I've not ran into that for a few years now.

I regularly book cars for my wife, pay in full with insurance, and she picks it up at the other end, no charge (Cork & Dublin). I do seem to remember that they still expect her to have a credit-card in her name which is scanned but no charge is taken.

As ever with these types of questions, best find out who offers car hire in Knock and give them a call to confirm.

Kinda this. Read the T&Cs. Some require you to book the rental online and present the same card in the name of the rental online.

Others allow anyone to prepay but the card presented on the day must be credit in the name of the driver booked online