Starting on December 15th, easyRentacar will be renting cars at its new branch in Madrid.

I heard they offer good prices but the conditions are not so good. If anyone is familiar with rental cars, please post here your opinion about this company.

Antonio

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The best tips from your favourite hostal in Madrid.
Hostal Chelo at http://www.chelo.com

Antonio

Thanks for that info. We will be flying easyJet next summer to Madrid and hiring a car to get to the North of the country, so may well look into using easyRentacar.

You say the conditions aren't so good - can you let me know about this. Do you mean the way they need to check everything when you return the car etc etc?

I hope it works as well as their flights - I'm a real fan.

Thanks.

Jo-Anne



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Madly in love with Madrid

Jo-Anne,

I meant I heard easyRentacar has lots of hidden charges or things that are unusual in a rental car company.

But I know nothing about renting cars and that's why I was asking for opinions on this company's conditions.

Anyway, think that, no matter what they say, a company always try to make a lot of money from its customers. You shouldn't expect them to be your friends, but you can take advantage of their offers ;-).

Regards,

Antonio

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The best tips from your favourite hostal in Madrid.
Hostal Chelo at http://www.chelo.com

I have to say having only one type of car is a real downer not to mention easycar rates are not inclusive of unlimited mileage, cdw (essential in Europe) and has no Madrid airport drop off

I have researched just about every form of car hire in Madrid and my unbiased recommendations go to Holiday Autos in the UK and www.carjet.com located in Spain

Here you will find the explanation of the easyRentacar's way of doing business.



Also, they are taking advantage of the economies of scale. At the begining, they bought 5000 Mercedes Class A cars. I'm sure they got a higher discount than if they had bought 500 cars of 10 different models.



That's the same reason why easyJet flies from small airports (such as Luton) instead of big ones. They got charged less for landing / taking off.



This one has to do with the "dynamic" fare system that all companies of the easyGroup have (though I don't like it).

I understand the first two reasons. As for the rest of their conditions / policies, I don't know whether they are fair or not.

Regards,

Antonio

You might want to bear in mind the following which I copied from this week's UK Sunday Times
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'Easy' refutes claims

EasyRentacar reacted angrily last week to claims that it had mistakenly charged customers for damaging its vehicles. It also refuted claims that it was overcharging, saying that a £100 bill to repair a scratch on a hubcap was justified.
The response followed a barrage of complaints from Sunday Times readers who insist they have been wrongly charged for minor damage. Michael White of Edgware, Middlesex, rented a car for a day in Nice and drove it less than 40 miles. "I didn't even need to fill it up with petrol. I took it back undamaged and the next thing I knew, my credit card had been debited an extra £100," he said. White claims he rang EasyRentacar's premium-rate customer line five times, but his calls were not returned. He only received a response when he told his credit-card company to withhold payment.

Iain Glover of Bournemouth, Kathleen Parker of Harrogate, Graham Howard of Herts, and Yoshi Nishio of London, all reported similar incidents over the summer. Parker says: "It seemed very cheap, just £9 a day, but not when you are charged an extra £100."

A spokesman for EasyRentacar responded to the complaints by saying: "The rest of the car-hire industry writes off damages. We're trying a different approach - if you damage a car, you pay for it."

It insisted it did not profit from repair bills. "Our vehicles are Mercedes A-Class. If you take one to a Mercedes dealer, even with a scratch to a hubcap, you don't get much change from £100." It said returning customers can insist on having their vehicles inspected in their presence - but they may have to wait while staff issue cars to others first.
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Anchovy Front,

It seems that it's true. easyRentacar is not a good rental car company at all.

As you may have read from one of my recent posts, they are charging too much at the easyEverything shop in Madrid.

Uhm, I don't think they're going to make a lot of money if they start riping off people in such a way.

Anyway, thanks for the information.

Antonio

Here's an update on the easyRentacar saga. Stay tuned.......... http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/12/17/stitrldrc01004.html