HolidayAutos - do not book unless you are 100% sure you won't be late to pickup the car

[dominicjj]

Travelling with kids is hard enough. Try arriving at an airport to find the car you have booked and pre-arranged is not there because you are late to pick it up. So you need to book again at full price.

This site is a scam, their business model is flawed. Here is my story – plenty more examples online:

1. Book a flight to Spain in March – from Monday 28th August - Tuesday 5th September.
2. The go onto Holiday Autos to booking car hire - £160 but by accident I book from Sunday 27th – Tuesday 5th.
3. 1 week before flight, I notice my error, login to try and change my booking to see if I can get a refund for the extra day. They now quote £250 so I leave it.
4. Arrive at car hire place, told the car is not available, have to re-book – cost £440.
5. Contact Holiday Autos who tell me there is nothing they can do, they have kept my money and will not refund me for either car hires

HolidayAutos would not have to pay out my original £160 so they kept all of that. And the hire car company got much more for the weeks hire.

And as for customer service – well there is none, it’s just not there. This is the same story if your flight is delayed – just booking direct with the hire car company so you can change the booking.

Their on line reviews are shocking. Did you look them up before using them?

There are lots of alternative car hire brokers. This Summer, we used "Do you Spain" for the first time - we chose them because they offered a car hire firm that offered an exact type of car (none of this "group C" nonsense where you get a completely different, smaller, car!) and a car that was "new" - i.e. less than x months old with fewer than y miles on the clock - as an added bonus, it was the cheapest firm too! One thing that we didn't notice until we booked was that they offered free cancellation/changes right up to the day before - never expected to need that.

However, the day before, I was googling out of interest and noticed they were offering the same car, same firm, same deal, etc but cheaper (presumably last minute special offer) because I could change from full-to-empty to full-to-full for only a tenner, whereas the tank of petrol plus refilling fee would have been close to Eur100, so I saved myself Eur90. Did it online at the click of a mouse - no problems at all.

No use to you, but for others, you need to shop around (it's easy online with the brokers), and watch for the small print and offers/extras etc.

"Being late" means arriving at 18:00 when you expected to arrive at 17:00.

You booked for the wrong days. Car hire agents are well within their rights to vary the prices according to booking start and end says and to notice given to manage supply and demand. It was perfectly reasonable for the price to have gone up to £250 when there was only a week's notice, perfectly reasonable for them to hire out the unclaimed car to someone else when you didn't shoe up on the Sunday and perfectly reasonable for the cost for a walk-up non-booked hire to be £440

I get that you are angry and want to blame them and cause them reputational damage but this situation isn't really their fault.

So you booked a car for Sunday, then don't turn up till Monday, and don't advise them (apart from logging on to DIY but not actually making any changes) and are a bit surprised they gave the car away?

That is a pretty common T&C tbh and they do make it clear:
What is a no-show? A ‘no-show’ occurs for the following reasons: 1. You didn't inform us about your cancellation prior to your pick-up time. 2. You failed to pick up the car at the arranged time and date. 3. You failed to provide the documentation that’s required to pick up the car. 4. You failed to provide a credit card in the main driver’s name with enough available funds on it. In the event of any of the above, no refunds will be made to you. The car rental company reserves the right to refuse a car to any customer who fails to arrive on time with all necessary documentation and a credit card with enough available funds for the car’s security deposit. In such cases, unless the car rental has been cancelled at least 24 hours in advance, the customer will not be entitled to a refund.
www.holidayautos.co.uk/manage-booking?clientId=477073?goto=faqs

And as for customer service – well there is none, it’s just not there. This is the same story if your flight is delayed – just booking direct with the hire car company so you can change the booking.
We booked through HA but they are just a broker, they don't supply the cars themselves. Our booking made us put in flight details so the hire co could track any delays to the flight and our ETA.

European car hire is a bloody minefield though, I am with you on that. Full of sharks and con-artists. But I don't agree that a mistake on your part is HA fault.

I have to say that I agree with some others. You need to take some responsibility here. You turned up a day late and didn't tell them what your error was. Are you really suggesting that in a busy period for car hire they leave a car sitting there on the off chance?

I book all our family holidays and you really do need to concentrate.

Put the wrong name on the plane ticket and you might have to pay £££'s to change it. Book the flight for the wrong day or time - again its your issue. In return flights/holidays have never been cheaper because its all done online.

It is not fair to call Holiday Autos a scam when you cocked up the booking yourself. The issue when you arrived is nothing to do with them, they are just a broker for multiple companies.

Yes fair enough however do you think it is fair when I turned up late (not early) and I had no chance to change my booking or contact them. I thought I'd paid my dues by paying for the extra day.

I would have assumed that the car would just sit there - who lost money here?

There are plenty of other cases of people who did not make an error in their booking but were simply late:

uk.trustpilot.com/users/593098740000ff000a9eef26
uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/59c423f1d2c8750f3ca4d2c2
uk.trustpilot.com/reviews/59b96a70d2c8750f3ca2342a

I think I wrote my review with just the facts so you can decide if I was right or wrong.

Sure if you are the sort of person where things never go wrong, use Holiday Autos, I'm sure they are great for you. I used them for years without any major problems.

But I judge a company by how they react when something goes wrong, not when everything goes right.

It's east being perfect if nothing goes wrong for you.

You are right - I remove the word scam. That is not accurate.

If all goes well, it works so that is not a scam, I apologies.

Unfortunately not - I've used them for years so didn't think I needed to - no major problems before, just usual car hire stuff.

Didn't appreciate how separated they are from the car hire firms - you are basically buying a voucher, not making a booking.

@dominicjj Yes fair enough however do you think it is fair when I turned up late (not early) and I had no chance to change my booking or contact them. I thought I'd paid my dues by paying for the extra day.

But you turned up a day later, which was a no-show as clearly stated in the T&Cs on their website and your booking paperwork; and you had at least a full week to contact them to advise of your error and request they retain the car for you.

The errors lie with you in this case, so don't go sniping at us with silly accusations about "being perfect" because you mucked up. We all do, it's called being human. But still doesn't make it HA fault.

But it was entirely your fault. They've acted within the terms and conditions referred to above.