Car rental ripoff

I'm probably the only person who hasn't figured this out, but if there is anyone else out there, watch out for American car rental companies. My husband used his Hertz #1 Club number to try to rent a car in Spain and was quoted a rate 3 times as high as the local rate. (That's the thanks Hertz gives its frequent customers.) I used his number on the internet and found the same thing. Then I used the hertz.com website to book a car without his number, but identified myself as living in the U.S. The rate was somewhat less. Later I went to hertz.es and identified myself as living in Spain. For a 2 day rental, the US site quoted me 155 euros, versus 82 euros from the Spanish site. This is crazy!! Be sure to rent directly from Spanish websites or Spanish companies.

Jana: That's pretty shocking! I assume you haven't yet picked up the car in Spain (where in Spain?). I'd be interesed to know how much you're ACTUALLY charged once you do pick up that car, how many add-on fees they'll charge in in addition to the quoted rate. THAT might be the difference there. Plus, while I don't know, foreigners may have to pay a kind of "foreigner fee". Not really sure. But please do come back to this/your thread and tell us the final numbers on your rental, won't you? Thanks!

Saludos, MadridMan

Jana,
I agree w/ MM in that this is a crazy situation - a couple of quick thoughts before yelling "rip-off!" would be were the three quotes in Euros or dollars - i.e. check and make sure the currency was the same for all three ... that might explain at least one of the three differing prices. Other suggestion is to see if all quotes include the same things such as amount of insurance -
Then, do a search and find a couple of recommended competitors!

That's pretty normal. Just as with airlines, their fares are marketed in one country like this and in a different country like that, according to the market situation. A flight from New York to Madrid will always be priced differently than a flight from Madrid to New York.

What you can do is shop around: I have residencies in two countries, and I always check the websites of the car rental companies of both countries before making my choice.

Jürgen

While planning our trip to Spain last year, I found the same thing reguarding pricing with American car rental companies. Finally found CarJet, a British company, whose rates, insurance, etc. beat the others hands down. Rented a midsize 4dr sedan, drove from Madrid to Granada, Gibralta, Seville and back to Madrid without any problem except the high cost of gasoline!!!

We finally went with Europcar, which had a 3-day weekend deal for the price of 2 and got upgraded to a big car. Regarding the 3 Hertz quotes, yes they were all in euros and were all final prices. I can understand why they charge higher prices for Americans if we are willing to pay. But I am really steamed that they soak their frequent customers with the #1 Club Gold ripoff. Bottom line is that the Spanish Hertz is competitive with all of the other agencies. It is just the American Hertz that is way out of whack. I don't know if National and Avis have the same racket or not. I'm not going to bother looking. Just remember, "www.hertz.es". When asked for your country of residence, put Spain.

Last summer I got a really good deal on a week-long rental for a sedan by booking through British Airways Holidays . It's a prepaid rental from Hertz (pick up either at Plaza España or the airport) that gives you a much better price than booking with Hertz directly.

I hope you'll give them a piece of your mind and less of your business. It's one thing to squeeze the dollars out of the general public, but to do that to their "best" customers, that takes a lot of corporate balls!

I just joined this and so glad I did! What great timing as my family will be leaving on a 3 week trip to Spain in 2 weeks and there has been lots of debate how we should book our car rental. Does one have to supply the Spanish car rental companies with proof of address in Spain? Thanks!!!!

I doubt it. It's mostly just a vehicle for deciding which prices to quote you. I would just put your US address. If you need a Spanish address, give a hotel.

I just booked my rental car and remembered this thread. I'm glad I did! I went to Hertz.com, and was quoted 2 different amounts solely based on where I was from when I entered the site. For 10 days, it was about 100 euros different. Otherwise, the website and the information they asked for was exactly the same. They never did ask for anything that would confirm my residence (not sure why this would matter anyway), so hopefully I'll get the rate they quoted me on-line when I arrive.

I'm curious what Janna (the originator of this thread) found out when she went to Spain? Anyone else had experience with this?

--el tio

Not sure why American companies charge more. We've been using the new spanish company PepeCar since they opened a few years ago. Never a problem. Yes, we still shop around to compare rates - and we've always found them to be cheaper. Just finished booking with them again for our christmas trip. I see someone here mentioned Carjet. I'm in the US and Carjet quotes in british pounds. I haven't really looked into them (didn't want to throw yet another currency into the mix). But do they have pickup at the airport? Or only downtown?

It seems that when I went to the carjet website and selected Spain, the prices I was given were in Euros not pounds. As far as pick up locations, there are many. The website lists them all. Give carjet a look, they out priced all the car rental companies I looked at.

To answer your question, Tio, I was already in Spain when I booked the car, and posted above about our favorable experience with Europcar. In late June we had another good experience with Europcar, picking up at the Barcelona airport and dropping off at the Girona train station.

As an aside on another bizarre car rental experience, we wanted to pick up in Barcelona and drop off in Paris. Hertz wanted to charge 800 EUROS EXTRA as a drop off fee for dropping off in another country. Why am I not surprised.(I guess Hertz doesn't buy into the European Union unified market.) Instead, we dropped off in Girona and took a short train ride across the border to Perpignan where we rented a car to drop off in Paris. For a family of four, we spent about 100 euros in train fare. Peanuts compared to the 800 euro drop off fee.

Interestingly enough, when I check the rates on-line, Europcar is double the price of Hertz (for a 10 day rental - 250 vs. 533 euros). Maybe it's because I'm picking up and dropping off at 2 different locations in Madrid that Europcar charges such a high rate. Carjet, however, was in-line with Hertz at at about 250 euros, though it had to be picked up and dropped off at the same place.

When I made the Hertz reservation, I clicked my geographic location as "Spain" - since it was about 100 euros cheaper than if I clicked my location as the U.S.. Now that I read the fine print in my reservation, it states that I must prove my geographic location when I made the reservation as being in Spain or they will charge higher rates or cancel my reservation. Has anyone ever heard of this?

Maybe I will switch to Carjet...

el tio

When I picked up in Perpignan and dropped off in Paris, we rented with Hertz (yes, despite my misgivings with their practices.) I listed my residence as Spain and was not asked to prove anything. All I needed was my credit card and driver's license. My experience is that rental agents are not interested in this. There is a rate on the paperwork in front of them. They want to get you in the car and move on to the next customer. I think it is only the marketing folks who figure they can get certain people to pay more than others who care about this stuff. That's not to say that someone might not try to stick to the fine print, but I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.

Here's the flip side of this sad story. The car rental agencies follow the "stick it to the foreigners" philosophy in the States, too. I was researching rental car rates from LAX for some Spanish friends and found that if I identified my country of residence as the US, the rate was $30 per day. For residents of Spain, $50. That's a 66% surcharge for Spaniards!! Avis was the same.

I assume that this is the market at work. The price is what the market will bear. When people go to foreign countries, they often feel more comfortable booking with large companies that they know. They also are ignorant of the going rates in the places they visit. So why not tack on an extra 66% if they can get someone to pay it.

I suspect this is consistent in all countries. I will never book with these large companies without checking out the different rates depending on declared country of residency.

Car rental companies have all sorts of gimmicks to part you with your money. When renting a car in the states while your main car is in the body shop because of an accident, they will charge you a higher rate when they find out the insurance will be paying for it. It's probably best to give as little info as possible.

to follow-up on my previous post, I booked on the "Spain" website of Hertz, nervous that they would check my country of residence.

However, when I got there, they didn't ask my country of residence. (my spanish is bad, they definitely would have asked had it been important to them). Therefore, as the previous post states, check out your home country page and the country's page you are visiting to sniff out these large price differences.

An update. Hertz is still ripping off it's #1 Club Gold members. My husband tried to book a one-day rental in Valencia using his #1 Club. He was quoted 200 euros. The Spanish agent said that was way too high and requoted for 45 euros, then upgraded him to an E-class Mercedes.

When booking a couple of one-week rentals this summer, I found ridiculously high rates online using our #1 Club number. When I resubmitted without the number and with AAA discount it was very reasonable. We always give the #1 Club number at the desk for upgrades, but DO NOT use it when reserving.