Hiper - Do not do it - pay a bit more - it's worth it !

“Hiper - Do not do it - pay a bit more - it's worth it !”

Written on: 20/08/2011 by grahamverity

Never felt compelled to write any review before but I had a really bad and costly experience with this one and if I was not an experienced traveller it might have been very distressing. I booked a Hiper Rental car through Holiday Autos (a division of last minute.com). I never heard of Hiper before but trusted last minute as a broker with credentials. The actual Hiper car hire office at Palma airpot is away from the airport (not made clear on booking) but, fair enough, it's often the same at Heathrow, etc. Our flight arived at Palma at 2am so I had to pay and extra Euro 20 for a pick up out of hours. Landed on time - followed instructions to meeting point - NOBODY THERE.
Waited 2 hours - tried Hiper Majorca number provided (no answer)and Holiday Auto 24 hour help line (joke) number until my phone battery ran out after 2 hours.
Went to the 24 hour on site Eurocar office (Sixt had one too) and a very helpful girl rented me a car on the spot. £200 more but at the time it felt well worth it. Europcar apologised profusely that they could not give me the deal I would have got in advance on the internet but gave me a good rate all the same compared to the book price - Good clean car too.
To their credit Holiday Auto's refunded the Hiper rental fee right away when I called their UK office next day but hire cost me £200 more than I had anticipated and so far I got no apology - I am not holding my breath.
Please learn from my exerience and try Eurpcar direct if you ae going to Majorca.