Car Hire - fuel levy.

[frank]

The e-mail Roz had is the same as I have in the past when I have queried their policy!

We have rented our first automatic from Rentacar 3000 (based in Arroya) they were €200 cheaper

I have used them as well, and apart from turning up late (They claimed our foght time was altered, it wasn't) they were OK. But like the others I have mentioned for a month, they were miles off the price. When I asked him, he did lower the price a little, but he was still too expensive. Might be different for an automatic, I don't know. I sent him my quote from Carjet giving him the opportunity of a months rental, but he couldn't get near their price.

[ashtondav]

Use Hellehollis.

They charge for a full tank and if you return it full they refund the charge -no questions.

if you are a member of their home owners club you get a 15% discount, and if you book more than one month in advance another 10€ discount. I find this as cheap as carjet and you save 2 hours of queuing.

If you are not a home owner you can still get the discount by quoting the membership number of someone who is.

As for paying extra insurance DON'T. Get the cover for a year from insurance4carhire.com. It costs £51 a year, so you're saving money almost from your first trip.

[jennyshaw]

We had a crap Chevrolet 1.2 from Sol-Mar last week, I had booked the B Group and got this, if they offer you one of these cars refuse it, on some parts of the A92 we were in 3rd gear it was embarrasing even lorries were overtaking us.
Anyway the point is they charged us 45E plus VAT for a full tank and to bring it back empty, how can you do that when you are travelling back to the Airport on a 100kms run, we never filled it up during our time over there but when we put in 20E it went well over the half way mark, so I rekon they over charged us by about 10 to 15E for the full tank and got it back with about 6-7E worth of petrol.

The car hire companies at Granada used to be great but now they are all ripping us off.

[ashtondav]

Like i say, use Hellehollis (or one of the other smaller players mentioned in other posts). All the other big ones now do the full/empty rip off. And as long as we're mug enough to keep going back, they'll keep ripping us off.

Time for the consumer to fight back Maybe an email to all the ripper offers pointing them to this, and other, posts and declaring a boycott.

[frank]

Use Hellehollis.

Used them quite a few years ago, but find them too expensive now. They want about £45 more than Carjet, that will pay for my fuel!

As for paying extra insurance DON'T. Get the cover for a year from insurance4carhire.com. It costs £51 a year, so you're saving money almost from your first trip.

Normally we holiday 3 times a year, and at the moment, Carjet charge me €16 euros per hire, so €48 ayear, or just over £32. I have looked at it before, I would need to visit 4 or 5 times before it was beneficial to me.

[Faire d'Income]

Like i say, use Hellehollis (or one of the other smaller players mentioned in other posts). All the other big ones now do the full/empty rip off. And as long as we're mug enough to keep going back, they'll keep ripping us off.

Time for the consumer to fight back Maybe an email to all the ripper offers pointing them to this, and other, posts and declaring a boycott.

Cheers, buddy. I've just completed all the forms and with the discounts they come in just under the Carjet prices from Goldcar. I'm also cancelling my Christmas booking with them outlining the reasons why.

[costakid]

used crown in august, 65€ for fuel and bring back empty, no full full anymore, ran the vehicle to empty and surprise surprise it only took 40€ to refill. just another way of jacking the price via hidden costs

[Retro P]

you can do the whole thing by internet,

They don't make it easy! A search throws up their telephone number, but I can't see any mention of web page, nor even an e-mail address.

Email them at: [email protected]

They will negotiate long term deals with you but I think they consider long term to be six-eight weeks or more.

[ashtondav]

Frank

i have just gone to carjet and helle and asked for a price from dec 1 to dec 31.

In both cases i asked for the cheapest car (opel corsa from helle, citroen c2 from carjet)

With an owner's discount and early booking discount at helle the prices were:

Carjet - €492.86
Hellehollis - €435.22

Without the owner's discount the helle price would be €497.90. Helle charge an extra €12 for airport pick up and i have included this charge. So even cheaper if you take the free bus 800 metres down the road.

Always worth checking the prices and i'm not claiming helle will always be cheaper.

Like i say, you don't need to be an owner. Just quote the

[Faire d'Income]

Well, having not only found a much better deal with Helle Hollis who seem far more marketing led and proactive, I've written to Carjet expressing my disatisfaction...

'having used your service many times over the last few years I'v become increasingly disappointed with the service levels of your suppliers of late. Having just returned from Malaga where I hired a Smart Car I was informed by the somewhat surly receptionist that I should have been aware of their fuel policy (€42.00) who insisted that I returned the vehicle empty in return for the privilege of, quite frankly, being ripped off. To refuel a Smart Car cost me €26.00 so there was a discrepancy of €16.00 which is flagrant profiteering.

Having spoken to a colleague of yours who assured me this was now common practice with Spanish rental operators I have been left with no choice but to seek out the best deal elsewhere, eventually finding that Helle Hollis can offer me a cheaper deal with the option to return the vehicle full.

Whilst I realise you are at the mercy of your suppliers, I and many others have found this a complete turn off and as such will not be using your company until this situation has been sorted out. Therefore, can you please cancel the above booking as I have gone elsewhere.'

I'd suggest others do the same in order to get some consumer leverage going here as I'm getting *beep* off by companies trying to fleece me.

[ashtondav]

I too have now emailed them.

[frank]

Frank

i have just gone to carjet and helle and asked for a price from dec 1 to dec 31.

In both cases i asked for the cheapest car (opel corsa from helle, citroen c2 from carjet)

With an owner's discount and early booking discount at helle the prices were:

Carjet - €492.86
Hellehollis - €435.22

Without the owner's discount the helle price would be €497.90. Helle charge an extra €12 for airport pick up and i have included this charge. So even cheaper if you take the free bus 800 metres down the road.

Always worth checking the prices and i'm not claiming helle will always be cheaper.

Like i say, you don't need to be an owner. Just quote the

Thanks for that! This afternoon I phoned Spain, one of the companies recommended here, to get a price, and see the best deal I could get.
For a small diesel car Carjet want £314 for 23 days, plus between €15 and €20 for the extra insurance. Say about £335 in total.
Company X quoted me €550 plus €5, yes €5 a day, for the extra insurance, (another €115) and converted, it came to about £449!!!
Just looked at Helle Hollis, and they want for a similar car, but not diesel £344, plus their extra insurance is €5 a day, so that's another €115!!!!
Read their T&C's it's scary. If you car is stolen, broken into etc, they are under no obligation to give you another car. I was broken into twice in Sevilla, completely knackered the door, took it back to Carjet, no charge and I was back on the road in less than 15mins with an upgraded car.
Some don't bother with the extra insurance, but I don't think they are aware what the ordinary insurance doesn't cover. For instance with HH, the clutch, wheels,tyres etc. OK if you are off roading and clout the sump, but the clutch? You'd have to be one seriously bad driver to burn out a perfectly good clutch! I'll end up with something!

[ashtondav]

Like i say, buy the annual hire car insurance here in the UK for £51. i guess it all depends how often you visit. We come out 6 or 7 times a year for a week or two so for us annual car hire insurance and helle hollis is a clear winner.

Anyway, the real message of this thread, for me, is to condemn, out of hand the ridiculous and scandalous rip off which is the FULL/EMPTY RIP-OFF.

[frank]

Anyway, the real message of this thread, for me, is to condemn, out of hand the ridiculous and scandalous rip off which is the FULL/EMPTY RIP-OFF.

Yes, I have been fighting the battle for some time now, I used to get Carjet to swap me to the companies that didn't operate that policy, but it's a bit of a losing battle now with them. I have e-mailed them on several ocassions, they even gave me back a whole £12 once! "Doyouspain" is a similar operation, but they use the same companies as Carjet, I think.
Anyway, off to a Spanish meeting now, so I can immerse myself in Spanish and forget about cars for a while!

[McT]

The following is from Record's FAQ:

Do I have to return the vehicle with an empty tank?
Please note that you have to return the vehicle with the same level of fuel as you received it as we do not do business with fuel. If you return the tank half full, please return the vehicle with the tank half full.

(I think they meant to say "If you receive the tank half full, please return the vehicle with the tank half full.")

Before becoming resident here I used to use email-car-hire.com, who always used Record at Málaga airport. Add about 3.50€ a day on top of the quoted price if you want wheels, windscreen, car underside, etc. covered by insurance.

McT

[sick and tired]

i received this after complaining via carjet i wonder how they made money before this policy my heart bleeds for them!!!

Please see e-mail below, with reference to your recent correspondence.

Kind Regards
Elaine
Carjet.com



Customer Service AurigaCrown Car Hire SL wrote:

>Hi Rachel,
>
>We have checked this matter and we are very sorry for this.
>
>As general norm for all the companies of vehicles of rent, the rental
agreement includes a few general conditions that they must be accepted
by the customer and which clauses are not negotiable.
>
>In case of the procedure established for the fuel, in all the rent a
car companies, there are fixed amounts charged to the client according
to group of the vehicle. The prices do not have relation with the
capacity of the car or the retail prices in gas stations.
>
>The charge that Aurigacrown Car hire makes for providing a
refuelling service reflects the service costs of an employee refuelling
the car and the costs of installing and maintaining fuel pumps and
tanks.
>The price Aurigacrown charges for refuelling is in line with the
charges made by other car rental companies.
>
>The procedure is the following: the customer became the tank full and
he has to leave it empty, if the rental is more than 3 days. We cannot
make partial refunds.
>
>For the charge of the extra day, we do not know why our colleague
charge the customer for a extra day, of course it was wrong....
>
>We apologize and we will make the refund of 25€ to his credit card.
>
>Kind regards
>
>
>
>
>Nicole Stieber
>
>Customer Services
>
>Aurigacrown Car Hire S.L.
>
>Tlf. 952.176.486
>
>Fax. 952.246.719
>
>[email protected]

[sick and tired]

how do you join the helle hollis home owners club??

[Faire d'Income]

Look on their website and follow the destructions. Took a couple of days for them to set it up for me but then I did fax the paperwork across.

[peteroldracer]

I have looked at the Helle Hollis club offer, but like most others it is only OK if you want a roller skate like a Corsa or Ka - anything bigger gets very very expensive! We looked into them for a car big enough for my brother-in-law (a builder of some 18 stones), his wife (not a tiny lady) and my OH and me to do some serious motoring, like a trip to Gib.
Helle Hollis wanted over 400€ for a Focus 1.8 for less than a week, and we hired one from a small outlet in Torre del Mar for just over 200€ - and with no messing about with full or empty tanks, the car there at the time we had arranged to pick it up etc.
Big (in terms of business) is not always beauitful!

[frank]

For better or for worse, I have just booked with them after an absence of many years. I have booked the third group up, whatever that turns out to be(next one up from a Corsa I think). I normally ensure it is at least 1400cc, as we also do a lot of mileage. We also spend quite a bit if time in a couple of small white villages, and I have found big is not necessarily a good thing there. We are only two, and we'd only make a bit more than 18stone between us, so a fairly small car is fine for us. For 23 days it works out less than £300. I agree it certainly pays to shop around. I have tried many small operators, but the one's I tried could not get near the price.