Car hire experience in Portugal

Just picked this story up from the Daily Mail Travel Mail Blog of the experience of Steve Pellew-Harvey telling the newspaper  about a recent car hire experience in Portugal which shows that everyone now need to watch out for when they book  car hire.

He rented a car in Faro Portugal  and was charged €85 for fuel. On all rentals of six days and over the fuel policy was “collect full - return empty.  Most holidays are seven days, so of course virtually everyone gets caught out by this.’

If you don't use the car too much and do a great mileage / kilometerage then the majorirty of customers are going to get caught out by this. This is also common in Spain now and this can be for shorter rentals as well which is even worse as a lot of motorists will return the car with plenty of fuel in it for the car hire company to sell onto the next customer.

Earlier this year I rented a car in Dublin for three days, had the car hire company had a similar policy, I would have been greatly out of  pocket as when I returned the car to Dublin Airport I great difficulty in getting €6 worth of fuel in it.

When hiring a car in Spain and Portugal, before you make that booking, do look at the small print regarding fuel first. The car rental iteslf might be cheaper than the competitor's, however for the consumer's point of view, they could easily land up paying more in the end.

This is just another way in which car hire companies try and add a cost on to the car hire. The other well known way has been to say to the customer that the car hire excess insurance they have bought from an outside company will not cover their vehicle. 

Do take care. The Mail's article in full can be found here.   

Finally on the subject of the Algarve and Portugal, if you are fed up with the weather in Northern Europe and are looking for some sun in Portugal jmlvillas.com self catering holiday rentals have a great selection of holiday properties. Visit the Portugal Page Here