Barcelona car hire? Bad reviews everywhere!

[Beyondparadisefan]

Following on from my last post where I’ve made an error regarding our car hire for our holiday near Barcelona next week. The hire has been cancelled so now I need to desperately book car hire for next week from Barcelona airport.

wise mumsnetters are there any companies you’ve used that have been good?!

I'm tired and stressed and all I see about car hire companies at Barcelona airport online is bad reviews! Are there any that are better?!

please help an overwhelmed mum out!!

Just back from Barcelona - carhire, It’s really expensive - we went everywhere by train instead. Sometimes taxis which are pretty cheap considering it’s such an expensive city.

where are you planning to go?

The big names are fine. Avoid gold car ... Stick with hertz, etc

We used Budget a month or so ago. Totally fine, no issues. Drop off was a bit chaotic as spots were limited and they were busy, but that was the worst of it.

Have hired cars from Barcelona a number of tines and at this stage always use Alamo, have always found them very good

We used SIXT last week. No problems at all. A very good experience.

Where are you planning to go that you need a car for? Public transport in the area is pretty good and I'd expect driving and parking to be awful.

Hiring a car in Barcelona is probably similar to doing so in London, to be avoided if possible. Or could you look at taxis or even car club for a day or two if there's somewhere you need to get to where public transport really wouldn't work?

We went to Barcelona recently and used their version of uber and the normal tubes and trains. Easy to use and get around the city.

Could that be an option?

Get Insurance4carhire if you decide to hire. And video / photo every inch of the car. They are all shysters but you can protect yourself. A bit.

We've hired cars three times in Barcelona since March with no problem at all. Mobility go has the best quality car, the others stock is a bit iffy

I’ve hired a few times with different companies - the big name ones are pricier but more organised etc, ones like gold car - the cars are fine but be prepared to queue for quite a while to get the car. Also worth filtering for ones where the cars are actually on airport (walking) rather than a shuttle bus to get to.

What you get stung with is they want to add on fully comp insurance at the desk which is high and how money is made. Buy car hire excess insurance in the uk - just google for lots of companies- this will cover you insurance wise, including windows etc at a much cheaper cost. Find out more on Martin Lewis / Money saving expert.

Finally, if you have young kids, it’s probably worth bringing your own car seats -have had a mix of things provided through hire - more reputable companies tend to do better at this.

What is their version of Uber? Is it not the same? Asking because I'm going end of the month and was thinking of using Uber when needed.

Thank you. I should have said. We are staying on a holiday park around an hour from Barcelona not easily accessible through public transport otherwise we’d do this.

I was looking at sixt but the reviews put me off! But then quickly realised almost all of them have bad reviews!

Uber worked out more expensive and less reliable. They have a local system that basically works like uber. From memory our hotel told us about it but will ask my husband if he remembers the name.

It’s called Bolt. You can download app and it works like uber but it’s much cheaper.

We always go with SixT and have never had a problem. They've turned a blind eye to damage before as well!

Are you going north or south of Barcelona? It sounds similar to where we go. Have a lovely time. Catalonia is one of my favourite places in the world.

Go through Zest car hire brokers, they have extra insurance.

Avoid gold car ...
Ive used them many times in Spain over the years and never had a problem.

I don't have any particular recommendations, but I do highly recommend getting the excess insurance from someone like Questor: https://questor-insurance.co.uk/insurance-products/car-hire-excess-insurance

It's much cheaper than getting it from the car hire company (I get it for a full year because we don't have a car and hire one a few times a year) and you worry much less about being stiffed for a 2cm scratch or similar.

We just pay the extra and get the full protection now when booking. It’s really stressful if you go for the very cheapest option / separate excess insurance - we did the full excess no deposit option in Greece last week and it was super easy. They barely checked the car when we got back and it was all very pleasant