The Worst Rental Experience Ever

I booked a car via this website for a 5-day holiday in Italy collecting the car from and returning it to Pisa Airport. They quoted and I accepted £192 all-inclusive for the 5 days for a Fiat 500L basic hatchback. They took payment on my credit card immediately even though I was not travelling for another 3 months. They took another £22 which I had not agreed to 3 weeks before I travelled saying it was an insurance excess refundable amount. The hire company in Italy was Goldcar.

When I showed up at Pisa Airport I was told by Goldcar that the payments I had made to rentalcars.com were only for the basic cost of the car and no insurance, CDW cover, etc or fuel was included. Goldcar took another Euro 248.00 (about £220 after credit car fees) for insurances and fuel.

I only drove the car locally over the five days and used only 3/4 of the tank, I returned the car with 1/4 of the tank full. I got a refund on my credit card of £9.00 from Goldcar for the unused fuel and no refund at all from rentalcars.com. This makes my total outlay for 5 days car rental £425 which is £85/day. A far cry from the "£7/day" hook they grab you with.

In short, you are far better booking directly with the hire car companies (Europcar, Sixt, Avis, Hertz, etc) rather than going through rentalcars.com.

My experience of Goldcar is also very poor, the staff service was the worst I had experienced in 30 years of renting cars, and their biggest rip-off was the fuel, the charge you £1.90/litre and add 33% tax on top even though I could have filled the car myself at the normal pump prices of about £1.40/litre without paying 33% tax for the "service".

In short; avoid rentalcars.com and if you can help it avoid Goldcar as well.