Not happy

Having booked twice through Atlas now I wouldn't do it again. Seems like a bargain price but you get totally ripped off further down the line by the car rental people on collecting the car....paying far more in the long run!

In Portugal we used Gold car and the lady behind the desk pretty much bullied us into taking out the extra insurance telling us that if we didn't pay £200 now we had a 99% chance of having to pay £2000 on collection - pointing to the whole car lot saying they all had to! Apparently people in Portugal scratch cars with keys parked in car parks and bash doors into your car which we would have to pay £2000 for!
We were so scared by the end of the converatiaon and the figures (which I would love to see proven) she quoted we paid the £200. Our friends who used a different company did not get this scare mongering, hard sell and didn't take the extra insurance out. Guess what no issues, no scratches and lost £200!

On this recent occasion in Ireland we used Budget, I took out the extra insurance with Atlas this time to protect me fully. At no point pre booking did they clearly highlight the fact I HAD to provide a credit card (admittedly I didn't read the pages of T&C's where they had mentioned it). I have rented so many cars previously and I have always been able to use a debit card as deposit. On arriving at Shannon with my two children and elderly mother-in-law I was told I couldnt have the car without a credit card despite having paid extra for insurance. They didn't recognise the Atlas cover and I had to pay an extra £90 if I wanted the car I had paid for. I was totally stuck, couldn't contact Atlas as they were closed on Sundays and had to pay for even even more insurance!!
On my return I called Atlas to try and get a refund of the insurance. The last I spoke to was more than useless and didn't care in the slightest. Very poor customer service and clearly wanted to be somewhere else - not at work.

The car categories are very deceiving! They advertise one size car and on arrival you get a much smaller one "same category madam." Funny how the largest car in the "category" is the one their advertise yet you get given one half the size.

In my opinion you're probably better off paying the higher prices of booking direct with the company - will try this next time and see if it goes soomther!