Whenever we travel anywhere, we like to hire a car.
To us, it’s the cheapest way to get out and about and really explore the area that we’re in which is our aim whenever we go somewhere new and we’re pretty confident now when it comes to hiring a car so I thought it might help to share a few of our tips to make our car hire experience as stress free as possible.
We’ve never had any issues with our car hire experiences but we’ve been behind more people than you would think in a queue waiting for our turn when picking up a car and have seen so many dramas because people aren’t familiar with what to expect and have been shocked with one thing or another when they’ve gone to collect their car.
Some of these issues have been easy to fix after a few discussions but on one occasions, someone couldn’t actually pick their car up as agreed as they didn’t know about the credit card restrictions in place.
You need a credit card
Actually you don’t need one. Some companies will accept a booking without a credit card and will let you use a debit card instead but they are few and far between and if you don’t have a credit card in the name of the driver then you are going to be really limited on your car hire options.
Having a credit card, which must match the name of the named driver, is an essential for the vast majority of car hire companies.
You will be asked to leave a security deposit
Most car hire companies will take a sizeable security deposit on your credit card. This has been as high as £1200 for us in the past and if you don’t have the funds available then you will be unable to drive away with your hire car. These funds will be held until you return the car so you can’t rely on them for your holiday spends.
The price you are initially quoted is generally not the price you will pay
Or it isn’t if you want to take out the full insurance that will keep you covered in case there’s any issues with the car while it’s in your possession. Basically, the insurance you pay which is included in the price means that you are covered but there are pretty big excesses involved. Our car hire in France had an excess of £2500 but we had the option to buy additional insurance to waive the excess when we picked up our car. We knew to expect this as we always take this out so we can be totally worry free while we’re on holiday.
We did have an issue where someone scratched our car in a car park once and even though it wasn’t our fault, had we not had this insurance it would have meant we would have been liable to pay the cost to repair up to the maximum amount of our excess. Just knowing we have the excess waiver insurance means we don’t have to worry at all about it.
If you don’t take this option then it’s pretty important to make sure any damage to the car is clear before you drive off. I used to do a video of me walking slowly around the car before we got in it.
Don’t forget your driving license
This is a no-brainer but we have seen someone who hadn’t brought their driving license and expected the car hire compant to accept a copy. They had to change the name on the booking to someone who did have their license which meant that they had to use a different credit card to leave their deposit. It was lucky that they could do this but it definitely was a stressful start to their holiday (and ours waiting behind them in a queue).
Choose a pick up location on the airport
When we went to Italy last year, we booked an option that looked reasonable for cost, car size and insurance but what I didn’t notice was that it wasn’t an on-site company and we had to get a shuttle bus to pick it up. This is no problem if you speak the language, know where to go and most importantly that the companies shuttle bus runs often enough that you’re not waiting and wondering if you’re in the right place for 45 minutes.
We are now super careful that it’s an on-site pick up and drop off when we book as that was not a fun start to our trip.
Know where the petrol station is ready for drop off
Most car hire firms expect you to drop off the car filled with fuel so on the way out of the airport, we would usually make sure we know where the nearest petrol stations are. We’ll generally fill up a bit further away from the airport as it’s so much cheaper and then if the dial moves off full before we drop off then we’ll so a quick top up just before drop off.
You don’t need to pay for extras
We never have anyway. We always use Apple Maps on our phones for sat nav and have rarely had an issue with 4G or 5G when we’ve been out and about. I take a USB cable to connect our phone to the car and the last few cars we’ve had have had Apple Car Play so the sat nav has been displayed on the screen. We also took a car seat when we went to Paris as we didn’t want to pay £60 for a seat that we didn’t know would be comfortable or as safe as ours.
Consider where you will park the car
You want somewhere safe and secure to park your car when you’re not using it so make sure you choose accommodation where there is free car parking on-site. We always check this before we book anywhere to make sure that we have somewhere safe to park it.
Having a car helps you see more of the area you’re visiting, gives you more flexibility and genuinely helps you make more of your holiday. We wouldn’t be without a car when we travel.
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