Europcar

Often when I travel abroad it is not just a case of going by taxi to an office. Often I have to visit a few customers or technical centres or sales offices of various companies. It is not cost effective or particularly efficient to do this by taxi so I often hire a car. My company nowadays tends to use Europcar. On a couple of recent visits to Milan and to Brussels I have used Europcar again. As there is usually just myself or at most one colleague a small car will do but nothing too small. For my last 2 visits I have had a Vauxhall Astra (which I did not like as a car) and a Citroen Xsara (which I did like). On both occasions the car was ready as soon as I ...

Four of us hired a car at Lyon St Exupery airport in May 2008 through Holiday Autos and they chose Europcar as their local agent. We had no problems at all with the car (and no bumps) and when we returned it to the airport a uniformed Europcar employee carefully inspected it and (in front of us five adults from three different families) said there was no problem, nothing to sign and sent us off with a smile. She did notice a bit of loose plastic trim under a door but accepted that was just normal new car loosening - she certainly didn't see any need for a damage report. It probably cost a few cents worth of glue to fix back on. "Nice company to do business ...

We had reserved a car for a week in june 2008 and payed for it, we thought, as the invoice said 'fully paid', including insurance. When we arrived in Malaga we had to pay for a full tank (you're supposed to return it empty, ever try that?) and 47 euros for what they called 'excess', since we had already payed insurance. Well, excess is exactly what it was, we payed nearly 200 euro for a small Kia for one week in the end. We called Europcar in the Netherlands to protest, they would not let us talk and said they didn't care if we never did business with them again. Nice attitude Europcar.. it was a unpleasant start to the holiday, so I guess we're all agreed we'll use another firm next time.