car hire-are they all swindlers???

[NeverTalksToStrangers]

I'm trying to book car hire from Milan Bergamo airport in August. The prices vary considerably, depending on what operator you are looking at, but by and large the reviews for every single car hire company are shite.

The only ones with decent reviews seem to be the third party companies, who have to be working with one of the car hire companies.

Totally confused.
We booked with enterprise in france last year and had no issues but their prices are higher than the rest this time.

Has anyone had a good experience with car hire? Particularly from bergamo? Help!

Bump

Have you seen how the Italians drive? That's probably why the prices are so high.

I normally use one of the comparison sites (like Car Hire 3000) and have just taken out excess insurance so that they can't give me the hard sell at the pick-up desk.

Sixt seem to be quite reasonable at the moment and my DH has always found their service good.

The prices are actually reasonable (from about £105 for a week) but it's the charging double at the desk or being billed for old damage etc that scares me. Sixt aren't an option as their desk closes before our flight gets in.

In that case i would take out excess insurance, politely decline all extras at the desk and photograph the car both when you pick it up (go back to the desk if there's marks/scratches that aren't listed) and when you return it.

No but I don't think these poor swindled people were given any choice at the desk. Read the reviews of them all (hertz,avis etc) they are all shocking.

Here is avis..
www.reviewcentre.com/reviews8012.html

hertz
www.reviewcentre.com/reviews8016.html

My point being is this the rarity or the norm? I know people are more likely to put a review online if it's bad, but still.

Has anyone hired a car with these companies and not been ripped off?

bump...

anyone hired a car from bergamo??

We did NeverTalksToStrangers, Last month we flew into Bergamo and got a car from Hertz. We booked the car whilst booking flights with Ryanair. Car was pre-paid and we selected third party at the time of booking. In Bergamo we were given the option of fully comprehensive insurance but declined it as was a further €24 per day, we said third party would be fine. Guess what?? we got charged for it anyway, plus a location surcharge because we "chose" fully comprehensive!!!!! Im raging as the charge of €419.68 hit our credit card when we arrived home from holidays. Bear in mind that the cost of the hire was €830 for 2 weeks was fully paid last November. We are fighting it with Hertz here and they are in touch with the Bergamo Hertz people. But it will be our word against theirs. Just be really careful..... Tell them precisely what you want and don't want. If you have any other q's NeverTalks just ask>HTH

Whatever you do avoid a company called Goldcar - complete scam merchants, claimed that our worldwide excess insurance policy wasn't valid in Italy.
What we do now is go for a reputable company -sadly I would have thought Avis & Hertz would have been one of them. Whatever company it is check the fuel policy - full to full is what you're looking for, and buy yourself a CDW policy online

Oh god I don't know about a rip off but we had the most excruciatingly frustrating car hire experience at Milan Bergamo.

We have hired cars before in other European countries and never had a problem. At Mlian, despite the fact that we had arranged the car hire months in advance, when we arrived it took at least 30 minutes for them to complete the paper work. I mean, how hard can it be? You know you have someone arriving on a particular flight and they have asked for a certain sort of car - so wouldn't you have everything prepared in advance so you just have to check their IDs, scan their cards, get their details? No! We had to stand there while umpteen forms were printed off and filled in by hand.

Then we were told that the sort of car we wanted was unavailable so we had been given an "upgrade" at no extra charge. Yeah right! We had chosen the sort of car we wanted for the amount of luggage space. The car we ended up with might have been a bit more "flash" but we ended up with one of the suitcases on our knee in the back seat but by the time we finally got the car we were losing the will to live so we just took it and went.

And breathe!

Just seeing these responses now.

We booked through rentalcars.com and went for europcar, whose reviews on the broker sites aren't TOO bad. Disgusted that supposedly reputable companies seem to be ripping people off re: insurance. We'll be bringing details of our excess insurance with us and giving clerks very serious don't-mess-with-me eyes if they mention charging us more.

Steer clear of Hertz Bergamo!!! shower of fucking thief's. They put through sneaky super cover insurance even though we said we didn't want it. Flaming fuming. We were so stressed with kids at desk that day, husband just signed the form the Hertz muppet handed us. He (Hertz clerk) had ticked the box stating that we wanted this cover even though we discussed it with him and said we didn't want to pay the extra 24E per day charge. I swear I will never ever ever rent from that shower of fuckers again. FUCK!!!!!