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There’s one scam that nearly everyone falls into when renting a car in Alicante.
Here’s how it works.
You look online and find an amazing price of, say, €674 for a Jeep Compass 4×4 or Nissan Qashqai for a three-week holiday – just €32 a day! The online Alicante car rental broker offers you an ‘excess waiver’ cover or similar insurance for just €71 extra.
It’s a no brainer, right?
Wrong.
You arrive at the car rental desk at Alicante airport only to be told your ‘excess waiver’ insurance is not accepted. You argue but it’s going nowhere. You have to pay €312 for extra insurance or pay a €1,500 excess deposit via credit card or debit card (you know you need divine intervention to get that back in full).
The above is a TRUE STORY.
We found it on a 1-star TrustPilot review for the best car rental broker in Alicante.
The customer ended up getting no reply from the Alicante car rental broker, and so they forked out over €1,000 to get a tiny Fiat 500 from another rental car company’s desk in Alicante airport. The €32 a day bargain ended up costing €83 a day for a car half the original size.
We at Blanca Cars are tired of receiving last-minute calls from panicked holidaymakers on the brink of losing their holiday spending cash over a common car rental scam. We operate a small, honest and local business renting cars in Alicante from our office in Javea in the northern Costa Blanca and we’ve built a strong reputation for offering zero deposit, zero hidden fee car rentals in Alicante with a free additional driver, and full insurance cover included in the up-front prices.
Find our top 10 tips to renting a car in Alicante below.
If you have an accident while renting a car in Alicante, then your hire car ‘excess’ policy sets the limit you will have to pay for repairs or a replacement.
The excess is usually between €600 to €3,500.
In early 2015, car hire companies in Alicante started to introduce an insurance excess. Prices that previously included a collision damage waiver with zero excess suddenly required you to pay an excess deposit between €900-€1,900 at the car hire desk – usually by credit card.
The problem is you have no idea about this excess deposit until you arrive at Alicante airport.
And that’s where the situation gets sticky.
We found this account from a Spanish whistleblower who quit his job at a car rental desk in a major Spanish tourism airport (very likely Alicante airport):
“Here’s how it goes. An online broker or comparison site offers you a car, and an ‘insurance’ of say €120, and you take it to be safe. When you get to the airport, after a long trip, tired, hauling luggage, from another country, the car rental salesman says: ‘No, sorry, your insurance is meaningless, the comparison site is not the owner of the car.’ You get angry. You’ve already paid for insurance. But now we ask you for an excess deposit which 1. never entered into your holiday costs 2. you don’t have €2,000 spare and 3. you don’t have a credit card so you end up forced to pay the money with a promise to get it back in 30 days. Arguments, tantrums, calls to the bank, calls to the car rental broker with no response… This was 99% of all my car hire cases, for six months, renting out 500 cars a day at the airport.”
One clever customer commenting on this story says she took out a valid third-party insurance in advance, and refused to pay any extra insurance or excess deposit at the car desk. The result? The car rental company charged her card without warning for unknown damages.
The customer made an official police report (called a denuncia in Spain) against the company and successfully received enough compensation back that covered the holiday, the hotel and all holiday costs.
The only catch: she waited a year for compensation.
If you want to avoid the above drama you should rent a car in Alicante directly through the company, expect to pay for full-cover insurance at the desk or carry a credit card or debit card with at least €1,000 available for an excess deposit.
Renting a car in Alicante with Blanca Cars comes with no excess deposit. When you rent with Blanca Cars, we include an unlimited civil liability insurance in the up-front prices of all our rental cars in Alicante. So long as you have a damage report or police report you pay no excess. Without an official report, you pay an excess of €150-€300 depending on the car. No extra hidden fees. No surprises at the airport.
There’s still something you need to know about rental car insurance.
Our whistleblower above dropped another bombshell in his blogpost: rental car companies in Alicante often pay their salespeople a 2% commission on all insurance policies sold at the desk.
It’s a money-making scheme that benefits everyone except you, the customer.
If you have an external insurance policy that covers you renting a car in Alicante – and you’re told it is invalid – you are most likely being lied to.
When you rent with Blanca Cars, you have full coverage by simply showing a damage report form or the police report. Without any additional costs, you will also have included 24 hours free road assistance and replacement vehicle. The cost of towing the vehicle and assistance will be covered by the full cover insurance.
For many years, car rental companies in Alicante could make a few extra euros by offering a ‘full/empty’ fuel policy.
It sounds great on paper: pick your car up with a full tank of fuel, return it empty.
Except you’re not always told you’ll have to pay for that full tank of fuel at the car hire desk – and often pay a €30 or €40 premium on top of a standard petrol station price.
It’s also nearly impossible to return a car with an empty tank. So you’ll be giving the company a few more euros upon return.
Sometimes you can even get caught out on a ‘full/full’ fuel policy. A car hire company might demand you bring a fuel receipt or claim the tank isn’t fully full. Both of these scenarios can lead to demands for extra payment or a sudden charge on your credit card or debit card that takes months to claim back.
When you book your hire car in Alicante with Blanca Cars, our fuel policy is full to full. We can easily tell you where the closest petrol stations are to our Javea office or at Alicante or Valencia airports.
Would you be surprised to know that salespeople at large car hire companies in Alicante repeatedly charge customers for the same bumps, scratches or stains?
In the account of the car hire whistleblower, he says that a woman complained about a €30 charge to her credit card to clean a carpet stain that was already there when she picked the car up. Upon checking the car in the system a message read “Don’t forget to charge for the stain on the carpet”.
In other words, salespeople were repeatedly charging customers to clean the same stain.
To save yourself unexpected charges it’s wise to always photograph all the bumps, scratches and stains you find on your rental car in Alicante. These pictures will help you make a claim and receive compensation for an unjust charge.
When you book with Blanca Cars, we will inform you of any existing damage or stains and never charge customers for the same damage twice.
According to online comparison site Rastreator, the average cost to rent a car in Alicante is €363 per week. You can expect to pay slightly more – €407 per week – if you collect your rental car in Alicante city, instead of at Alicante airport.
That’s an average minimum cost of €52 a day.
(This comparison takes an average from all types of car rentals in Alicante, so you can expect to pay less per day for a smaller or cheaper car.)
A quick look at one of the top comparison sites shows prices as low as €5.56 per day to rent a car in Alicante. But as we’ve just seen, the true cost will only come clear when you arrive at the car desk – prepare for extra insurance, excess deposits, punishing fuel policies and claims of unseen damages when you return the car.
Also be prepared to pay extra for additional drivers and expect a limit on the kilometres you are permitted to drive.
Once all is added up, you might be paying far more than the average.
Renting a car in Alicante with Blanca Cars gives you a free additional driver included in the up-front price. No hidden costs. You can see our current fleet of rental cars in Alicante here. Contact us via our online form for a tailored quote.
There is one main problem we hear about rental car brokers or online comparison sites.
And no, it’s not just the unforeseen costs. It’s the lack of customer service.
Many large car rental companies – and especially online comparison sites – don’t have a local office.
One of the main rental car comparison sites in Alicante doesn’t even have a telephone number. This can make things really complicated when the car rental company at an airport desk starts asking for insurance you’re sure you’ve already paid for.
Being able to talk to someone on a weekend could also be vital in the event of a breakdown or accident.
The Blanca Cars office in Javea (northern Alicante) is open every day of the week, except Sunday. You can contact us via telephone or WhatsApp on +34 653221333.
Choosing a local company can be the best way to ensure great customer service, lower costs, better explanation of insurance and fuel policies, and fewer unexpected charges when selecting a car hire in Alicante.
You are also helping to ensure that tourism income stays within the beautiful Alicante region you’re visiting.
When you book with Blanca Cars, you’re choosing to shop local with a Javea-based company that is dedicated to providing the best all-inclusive car hire services to anyone visiting Alicante.
If you’re taking a holiday in Alicante, you’ll most likely be looking for the best car rental company at Alicante airport.
But that doesn’t mean you’ll always get the best deal or the best service there.
At Blanca Cars, we offer a door-to-door delivery service anywhere in the Costa Blanca North and a meet-and-greet service at Alicante and Valencia airports. The service is free – no extra costs.
This can save you having to wait in a queue. And can save stress if you’re travelling with a large family, young children, elderly relatives or people with disabilities.
To avoid stressful phone calls and insurance claims, stay safe when you’re driving in Alicante.
Here’s a list of our top tips for driving in Spain to ensure you follow Spanish road laws and general rules:
If you can find the best car rental in Alicante, that’s within your holiday budget, and doesn’t give you any expensive surprises at the airport, then you can finally enjoy the holiday!
Below are 10 stunning daytrips in Alicante for you to enjoy:
If you’re renting a car in Alicante and would like a no deposit, full-cover insurance, with a free additional driver and no hidden costs rental service, don’t hesitate to contact Blanca Cars. We will deliver door-to-door for free anywhere in the Costa Blanca North and offer a meet-and-greet service at Alicante and Valencia airports. Contact us now via telephone or WhatsApp on +34 653 221 333 or fill out an online form on our website and receive a quote in your email inbox.
Written by: BayRadio News
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