Avoiding Extortionate Car Hire in Spain

Flying to Malaga for a week.  Need to pick up a basic car (from the town or airport) to drive around the coast and hills. No biking involved. Last time I did it the hire company wanted a 2 grand wavier signed on pickup, and without the language skills to negotiate it wasn’t any fun – carefully driving around cities was nail-biting.

Any nicer car hire companies to use?

Take out protection before you arrive….it only costs a few quid for a week if bought in advance.

Yep that was done…but the dodgy company weren’t having any of it.  Said it wasn’t valid when it clearly was.  In retrospect, should have walked away but that would have meant last-minute hire from a different place in the middle of holiday season.  A common trick, I think.

Take out protection before you arrive….it only costs a few quid for a week if bought in advance.

The hire company will still reserve a waiver amount on your card and charge it if you have an accident, then you would need to claim back off your protection insurance. The only way to avoid the waiver it to take out their insurance which obviously costs more.

Yep that was done…but the dodgy company weren’t having any of it.  Said it wasn’t valid when it clearly was.  In retrospect, should have walked away but that would have meant last-minute hire from a different place in the middle of holiday season.  A common trick, I think.

They wouldn’t be claiming on your insurance, they charge you then you claim it back. This is normal if you are not using their insurance. I use Questor and had to claim once – they had paid me the money before the money charged to my credit card became due.

Yep, I use Insurance4CarHire for excess cover, I think I paid £30 for two weeks.  Its standard to be lumped for the excess, but you can drive happy knowing you have self insured against that, you don’t need car hire cover for that

We hired a few weeks ago, for us Alamo / Enterprise was cheapest, about £500 for Berlingo type car for two weeks. No attempt to sell any other cover. Picked up by shuttle, depot was about 400m from the terminal at Malaga, opposite the San Miguel factory. I’ll use them again.

I’ve used Gold Car before but they can have epic queues and have seen lots of bad reports.

We’ve used Helle Hollis a few times at Malaga Airport and they have been excellent.  Danish company and  seem to do things the right way which is a nice change after using the likes of Gold Car.

. We’ve booked a car through Malagacar.com next week for 10 days from the airport.  220 Euros, including their insurance which appears to mean that I can pay cash and not give any card details.  We’ll see next Tuesday ……

We’ve booked a car through Malagacar.com next week

We’ve used them before. They obviously subscribe to the idea that hire cars should be driven like race cars. So much so that the car came with what looked like racing slicks. Totally bald tyres.

Have also used Malagacar and just paid their price that includes the full waiver insurance with them. They don’t even inspect the car when you return it, just check the fuel is topped up. Definitely less stressful way of doing it if possibly a bit more expensive.

Didn’t check tyre wear.

Looking at Malagacar it’s roughly 200-300 for a week for a standard car.  Happy with that if it’s less stressful and more “European Shrug” style.  Any reports on Malagacar (i.e. from failedengineer) very much appreciated on behalf of my current account.

To start, there’s nothing dodgy about a hire car company asking to take a waiver of a couple of grand when you take a hire car, every firm does this whether they’re big or small.

There’s 3 ways to play the hire car game. Each has merits.

1. Take the car with the basic insurance, taking lots of videos and pics of the car before pick-up and on drop off. They’ll still want to put £2k on a card as that’s to cover any damage you might do, but if you don’t do any, and can prove it, then you’ll get it back. Some companies well try and sting you for every tiny bit of damage, others are more relaxed. This is the cheapest option if all is well, but the most expensive if you do any damage. I’d also argue it’s the most stressful option.

2. Take out an protection policy before you go. Most of the above still applies, but in this method, once you’ve paid for any damage you then claim it back from the company you took protection with. You’ll still need to pay the £2k waiver. This is the 2nd cheapest option, and whilst it removes some stress, it does add some faff.

3. Pay the extra for £0 excess from the hire car company. Drive the car like you stole it and enjoy worry free driving, safe in the knowledge that any damage is covered. This is the most expensive but also least stressful option.

Personally, for holiday hiring when driving on roads I don’t know and parking in unfamiliar places then I’ll take the additional cost of option 3 every day of the week. When I was hiring cars in the UK regularly then option 2 was the one.

https://www.malagacar.com/

We’ve used them. Very good.  On return they check the fuel level and aren’t interested in minor damage to the car was not even checked over.

Downside is that you may have several pre-existing dents which you may want to photo before setting out for peace of mind.

Don’t recall leaving a credit card bond either.

Option 2 really isn’t a faff. It takes about 2mins to take out excess cover insurance online.

Option 2 really isn’t a faff. It takes about 2mins to take out excess cover insurance online.

Correct.

But if you make a claim, it can be. Not always but it can be. And it’s still more faff than paying for excess cover from the hirer.

Take a taxi. Go up to the first taxi in the rank, show them the trip you want to do and ask for a quote for when you want to do the trip. Taxis in Spain are regarded as public transport. With 4/5 in the Taxi it’s often more convenient and not much more expensive than the train.

Malagacar.com or Hellis are great. 

I’ve used Malagacar several times and never had an issue whatsoever, but I’ve always taken their excess insurance as it was never that expensive.

Cars were always good and pickup and drop-off were hassle free. No need to use anyone else in Malaga.

Amazing, i’ll use this advice and report back after the trip in September. Cheers all.

One more vote for malagacar

Update: Malagacar.com were indeed amazing. Well under 200 EUR a week for a decent one (all included).  No fuss on return.  Nice staff.

Look for ‘malagacar.com’ if you’re using Googlemaps. It’s a 5 min drive away from airport. Don’t walk; their shuttle bus picks you up from outside the train line entrance.

Malagarcar were indeed good – although they did take my credit card details, which concerned me slightly.  However, the car was scraped in a car park and when I took it back, they just checked the fuel and said “It’s OK, you’ve got the full insurance”.  Recommended.

If you get the same car next time you go, it’ll still have the same scrape…

Fine.  Nice little car – Nissan Micra.  Boy, have they improved over the years!