Cheapest way to hire car abroad

[NestingBird]

I have a few trips coming up in France, Italy and Spain & need car hire. Someone told me they sort their insurance out at home before going, so once they get to the destination they just pay for the car & go. I’m not explaining this very well but all the add ons, etc, can you book those for, say, 1 year to cover you on all cars?

Yes. Insurance4carhire

Forgive me if I'm missing something, but when we rent a car we do it with a local firm wherever we are, select the full insurance option and pay online. They meet us at airport arrivals, give us the keys, I sign one form and that's it. The last rental handover took literally 2 minutes. Return also took no more time

Can't edit - sorry if I misunderstood. I read the post as being about a quick handover "pay and go". The title was about cheapest options.

I got told to always take the full insurance package from the rental company because if you don’t, when you hand the car back they will charge you for every microscopic scratch or dent (potentially even it was there before you got the car so on collection youd have to go round it with a fine tooth comb and point everything out so they can’t hold you responsible).

So Ive always done the full package. It’s dearer but no hassle and a quick handover of keys etc. And no worries about being stung with unexpected charges.

I had an annual policy when I did a lot of it, wasn’t expensive

Yup. They are fab. Used them a lot and had to claim twice. Really great service.

But I also double and triple check car. Photos and all because the hire companies are all scammers.

This is really helpful, thank you! Ah I see the trade-off is between getting an annual policy here & taking loads of pics/details as potential for scamming, or doing it all with them but paying more for the service. I expect it’s a lot more each time… I’m guessing a reputable car hire like Avis would be less scammy, but i guess it depends on who you get…

Will look up that link, thanks so much!

Can anyone help further, please? Trying to book through Booking.com and it says:

Damage Excess€1,500.00
If the car's bodywork gets damaged, the most you'll pay towards repairs covered by the Collision Damage Waiver is the damage excess (€1,500.00).This cover is only valid if you stick to the terms of the rental agreement. It doesn't cover other parts of the car (e.g. windows, wheels, interior or undercarriage), or charges (e.g. for towing or off-road time), or anything in the car (e.g. child seats, GPS devices or personal belongings).

do you think that sounds ok?

Car hire is complicated because most people don't do it very often and so they are to some extent at the mercy of the seller.

Basically, everyone says that they provide "full" insurance (although it is, just, possible to rent a car with just third-party insurance, and then you are on the hook for the whole value of the car if you cause an accident). This sounds great, but the problem is that "full" insurance is like your "fully comprehensive" insurance at home — it has an excess. And most of the shenanigans that you hear about is about the excess, which can be between £500 and £2000 but is most often around £1000.

There are several ways you can deal with the excess.

1. Buy insurance at the desk when you pick up the car, to reduce the excess to zero.
2. Do the same but when you make the reservation (often cheaper than 1).
3. Leave a deposit for the amount of the excess, usually on a credit card. A debit card will usually not cut it. Check for the word CREDIT on the card. Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists turn up with just a debit card and are told that's not acceptable for the deposit, and so they have to buy the car hire company's zero-excess insurance at the desk, and that's always going to be expensive.

If you leave a deposit, then more shenanigans begin with that. You can:
A) Perhaps find that permanent car hire deposit protection is bundled with the credit card
B) Get one-off deposit protection insurance
C) Get multi-trip (typically annual) deposit protection insurance
D) Take the risk.

In case of damage the car hire company will charge your credit card up to the amount of the deposit, and you will have to claim it back (A through C) or suck it up (D).

To claim the damage back, you will need to provide some specific documentation. The car hire company may or may not get a move on to provide you with all of that, in English, while you look nervously at your watch because your plane is going in 90 minutes. You may or may not fully understand exactly what bits of paper your deposit insurer needs.

Note that if you do have deposit protection cover (A through C), the car hire company does not care. They will still need the deposit on your credit card. This trips a lot of people up who rent through a broker site like Rentalcars.com. The broker sells you a cheap deal with Europcar or whoever, but both Rentalcars and Europcar make their real money by selling you insurance. So an hour after you make the booking, Rentalcars will be sending you scary e-mails about protecting your deposit, and so you give in and buy their insurance, but you don't realise that Europcar couldn't give a monkey's.

You also need to watch out for scams. Some companies, or just some unscrupulous seasonal staff who are after a bit of commission, will "discover" scratches on the car that were not marked on the damage sheet when you took delivery. Maybe it was dark, maybe you didn't look around. It's worth taking 20 or 30 photos of the car from every angle, but sometimes they "find" scratches under the bumper where you would never think to bend down. A few companies are notorious for this. There's a company called Green Motion who are explicitly excluded by many deposit insurance providers because it seems that their entire business model is charging ten consecutive renters £350 for the same scratches.

@samarrangeI really appreciate that. You’ve explained it so well, I was getting confused. Your explanation is consistent with what I’m reading, too. Just need to make the choices now. I’m overthinking it, I’m sure, but at least I know what I’m buying now! Many thanks.

The hire company’s additional insurance options are often very expensive.

You can book each hire through a company like Zest that includes the additional insurance or you can take out an annual excess insurance through companies like insurance4carhire. With both of these options in the event of a claim you pay the hire company initially and then claim back.

Yes - we always book through zest. They have really comprehensive insurance that covers you for everything with a tiny excess when you hire the car. We do still do a thorough inspection of the car when we pick it up though.

An excess of 1500 is pretty poor in my opinion

For what it's worth, even though I have a credit card that comes with deposit protection cover bundled in, I tend to take zero-excess from the rental company at the time of booking, which I pay for out of my "Life's too short" budget. It takes all of the hassle out of returning the car — the check-in person looks at your contract and knows that they don't have to check for scratches.

Former colleague of mine swore by the website DoYouSpain but I've never used it myself. I did look at prices for a recent trip but didn't think we'd be in the car much anyway (we weren't, got about 4 taxis across 10 days).

Great advice! @samarrangeI was thinking along che same lines. In the past I just paid the zero excess from the company, part out of ignorance, part out of ease, and it always helped me on return. One time I just handed them the keys & they didn’t bother checking it all - just shrugged it off!

If you book anywhere via BA for flights they have really good car hire deals which also means you get Avios.

I've booked through Zest for the first time this year as I don't want to get stung by the car hire company and I thought they would be easier to deal with as they are based in the UK. Interestingly their quote with the comprehensive insurance was cheaper than anything we could find for just standard cover abroad.

Also look at fuel policies. We haven't hired a car since before COVID for various reasons but it can also be the case that you pay for 'full to empty' which means you could end up paying for a load of fuel you won't use so to be avoided if you're not expecting to drive very far.

We recently booked a hire car for a trip abroad and when we got there, of course, there were additional charges and credit card deposits. We had a quick google for one off cover and it was way cheaper than insuring against X Y Z with the hire company itself.. They will always want a security deposit upfront and can charge for all sorts of nonsense. Take photos.
We were also told to return it with the same amount of fuel in it but it wasn't full. It can be tricky to refuel exactly rather than filling it up before return. Make a note of how many miles of fuel it says you have when you receive it, there will be some leeway but not much.