Trend on travel

Car hire extras continue to add up

Nick Trend

‘Car hire booking sites are failing to disclose the cost of ‘extras’ during the booking process, leaving travellers in the dark about how much they may have to pay when they arrive to pick up their car.” So began a press release issued this week by the insurance provider icarinsurance. com, summarising some research it had done about extra charges levied over and above the basic price for renting a car – charges for example for adding an extra driver, a child’s car seat, a satnav, and most expensively of all, the cost of waiving the excess for which you are responsible if you have an accident, or damage the car during the hire period. It found that “often only half of the extra costs would be highlighted in the booking process”.

It is a particularly invidious problem when it comes to excesses. These are usually set at several hundred pounds, and sometimes over a thousand – high enough to make most of us nervous about living with the risk. And charge of the waiver, which is normally only payable when you pick up the car from the airport desk, is disproportionately high, often adding more than £100 to the price of a week’s rental. Why does the system work like this? Because competition between car hire companies selling online has become so fierce that they do everything they can to keep the headline price as low as possible, then use the extra charges to increase their revenue.

We have been covering the problem of expensive extras in

for several years now. The main issue is twofold: first, if you aren’t clear about the charge in advance, then you can’t make a proper comparison and work out which company is offering the best deal; second, as we know from the many complaints we receive from readers, is the way that some local car hire franchise operations treat customers who refuse to pay for the excess waiver. The “sell” is usually very hard, and those customers who successfully hold out are forced to allow the full amount of the excess to be reserved on their credit card. If you don’t have enough credit, you won’t be able to take the car.

The stress levels for the customer can also be very high when they return the vehicle. Readers regularly report problems where the inspection reveals a scratch or damage which the company claims was not there when the car was collected, and the cost of repair is deducted from their card.

It is certainly not defensible, but perhaps it is not surprising that local franchises behave in this way. Because the initial price which the customer has paid for the car can be very low, the company depends on selling the excess waiver in order to run its business. That is hardly the customer’s fault and it is completely wrong that we should be pressurised and treated in this way. It is also extremely negative for the industry’s reputation, and a code of practice to deal with the problem is long overdue.

The reason, of course, that icarhireinsurance wants to publicise all this, is because it is one of a handful of companies that sell policies which will cover any damage you might do to your hire car. These policies are much, much cheaper than paying standard excess waiver charges and they have often been recommended in The only problem is that they are not recognised by the hire car companies. You still have to reserve a large deposit on your credit card and run the gauntlet of the staff at the pick-up and drop-off desks.

For more advice, visit telegraph. co.uk/carhireguide.

Nick Trend is Telegraph Travel’s consumer expert