The rush to the airport aside, the most stressful element of every holiday for many people is hiring a car. No matter how far in advance you have booked the vehicle, and the care you have taken to make sure you are fully covered to drive it, a battle of wills at the pickup desk is near unavoidable.
Different rules in different jurisdictions don’t help, nor does the patchwork of consumer protection in different countries. And if a US report that last minute “add-ons” account for 10 per cent of all car hire profit are true, you can see why counter staff might be so keen to flog extras at the desk.
So what should you expect when you arrive, perspiring and with family and luggage in tow, at the pickup desk? And what should set off alarms?
First things first: don’t rush. The obvious temptation is to grab the keys and head for your villa or hotel room but that could prove a very expensive mistake.
Take the time to read the contract and, yes, that includes the small print which is where you could find yourself hamstrung financially. And make sure to ask for an all-in figure on the cost you are signing up to.
Insurance
It is almost inevitable that whomever you are dealing with will try to sell you additional insurance cover. Some adopt more of a hard sell approach than others.
In general, it is not necessary. In the European Union, all car hire companies are required to include basic cover in the rental cost and, regardless of the scare stories at the counter, you are not obliged to sign up to any extra cover.
What you do need to be aware of, however, are excess fees that apply to most basic insurance cover. These can be substantial.
Car hire companies will try to sell you policies – super collision damage waiver – that cover these off but, without exception, you are better off buying a policy from a third party before you travel. These policies are available from specialist insurers online at very competitive rates whereas, for the car hire company, they are a way to pad margins. And they tend to be more comprehensive than the ones offered by car hire firms who might also try to offer you separate cover for things like windscreen and tyre damage.
During the booking process, the level of cover (and any excess) will become clear so there is no reason to wait until you get to your destination to organise a policy covering any excess.
You may still have to meet the excess cost from the car hire company but you can claim it back on your excess policy.
Just be aware that even with an excess policy – and almost certainly with one from a third party – the car hire company will place a block for the excess on your credit card. And, almost always, they will want to put it on the card used to book the car with.
This amount can be substantial so make sure your card limit is sufficient or that someone in the party has another card .
Damage
Don’t assume that the company will overlook minor dints and scratches. Just because they have not fixed such items before giving you the car does not mean they will not try to charge you for damage already there when you return the vehicle.
Practice varies widely from company to company and even from one car hire location to another even with the same company. But don’t assume what happened last time you hired a car will be the same this time.
In fairness, it is not necessarily sharp practice. At busy times of the holiday season, staff are coping with so many cars coming and going that they may simply miss something, only noticing it later when you subsequently return with the vehicle.
Having said that, customer feedback online suggests some car hire companies in holiday locations now see charges for minor damage as a significant revenue earner. The rates that some companies charge for even the smallest scratch are far above anything it will cost to put right.
The contract you get will normally have a diagram where the car hire company notes any existing issues but you need to take the time to check this carefully before driving away. Is there anything else that is not already noted?
If so, take pictures (and/or video) and bring it to the attention of the car hire agency staff before you drive away, making sure they note it on the contract diagram.
And don’t assume that it is only external damage you’ll be held account for. Companies can also charge for scuffs and tears to the interior.
When you return the car, make sure the company is satisfied with its condition before walking away. And if you are leaving the vehicle in an unattended lot after hours, make sure you video the vehicle to confirm its state when you returned it.
Extras
You would have thought that the satnav rip-off would be at an end, given that most cars will now pick up Google Maps or Waze, but every time I pick up a car, I see someone agreeing to take one. Hopefully you’re not that person.
Even if you’re concerned about roaming charges or a data package that won’t work abroad, you can download the maps you need so that they can be accessed offline.
The rules on child seats and who needs to use one vary widely from country to country and it is important to check these before you travel. No one will fancy lugging a car seat with them from home but the cost of hiring them at your destination could prove very expensive and many airlines are very accommodating on child seats.
Most, but not all, car hire firms will also charge for an additional driver or drivers so make sure more than one of you is going to need to drive before you add other names to the contract. Driving in a foreign country is not on most people’s favourite lists of things to do and a second driver may not be doing much driving anyway.
Fuel
It seems like fuel policy should be straightforward but apparently it’s not. In general, you will pick up a car with a full fuel tank and commit to returning it full. With Google Maps, the game of “find the station nearest the airport” isn’t what it was.
All airports in my experience have a station within a kilometre or so of the car hire drop off, so there’s no excuse for failing to have the car full on return.
One thing you can be certain of is that the per litre charge imposed by the car hire agency for any top-up necessary will far exceed what you would have paid for the five minute inconvenience of finding a petrol station.
Some car hire companies offer alternatives, neither of which sound like a good idea. They can ask you to pay upfront (at their rates) for a full fuel tank with the option of returning it empty. Given everyone’s natural aversion to being stranded without fuel, this is inevitably a win-win for the car hire group as punters will always return cars with some fuel.
Worse, though I have never come across it personally, is the practice of asking the customer to return the car with the same level of fuel as is in the tank on pick-up. Given how inexact a science fuel gauges are, the customer faces the unenviable choice between erring on the side of caution and overfilling the vehicle or being charged by the company for an alleged underfill.
The company’s policy should be stated online when you book. If the option is there I would expect a car to have a full tank with the understanding that I need to return it full. Anything else leaves you at the mercy of an unknowable cost.
Additional charges
Car hire companies, like most airlines these days, have a habit of charging individually for everything. And that can dramatically increase what you understood to be the headline per day cost of your holiday car.
These charges can include out-of-hours fees if you turn up outside the desk’s office hours – even if that is simply because your flight is delayed.
You can also find that the car you booked was given away because you hadn’t turned up, leaving you to hire a different and likely more expensive model, if one is available at all.
Most companies will ask for your flight number and it is a good idea to let them have that information as it should make them aware of any delays.
Some tips
There are other ways you can reduce the cost of car hire. If you can put up with travelling from the airport to your first location by public transport (or taxi), you might find it cheaper to rent the same vehicle from an office of the same car hire firm away from the airport.
Even then, booking online can be useful. I once arrived into an office Portugal looking to hire a car for the following day – having done an initial recce online. The rate they were looking to charge was a multiple of what I had seen online.
I stepped out of the office, took out my phone, booked online at the cheaper rate and returned to the same agent the following morning to pick up the vehicle. No problem.
And consider whether you really do need the car for the full week, or two? If you’re focusing on a beach or a city location for a chunk of your visit, the car will likely just be parked up (and costing you for that too).
Also, not all websites are created equal. It can be useful to use the local website of a car hire company in the country you intend visiting rather than the .ie version. But do make sure the terms and conditions are the same and that you allow for the impact of local currency exchange if outside the euro zone.
Consumer group Which? found in its 2025 travel car hire survey that someone booking a hire care in Las Vegas would pay £220 (€255) more for the same car with the same insurance cover by hiring from a UK website rather than through a US website.
Which? also advises that it is always better to choose the “pay now” option rather than paying later when you pick up the car. It locks in the price and removes any scope for local agents claiming rates have changed from what you had expected in the meantime.
The bottom line is that a cheap advertised rate is only half the story. Make sure you are comparing like with like and that you have accounted for all additional charges before you hand over your card details and confirm your booking.
There’s no way of guaranteeing a hassle-free pick-up of a hired car but you can certainly reduce the capacity for surprise and stress by taking the time to do your homework and by knowing your rights.
One final tip: when you do get back home, check your credit card bill and make sure what you’ve been charged for the car is what was agreed. It is not unheard of for people to find discrepancies. If you’ve been charged more than you expected, chase the company to find out why and to get your money back.
You can contact us at OnTheMoney@irishtimes.com with personal finance questions you would like to see us address. If you missed last week’s newsletter, you can read it here.
