5. If you cannot find the fuel charges until after you book, check the cancellation policy before yo

I find the single most stressful part of the holiday takes place at the car rental desk.  I prepaid for my modest, ford focus or something broadly like it  intermediate rental and expected to pick up the keys ready to start our family week of sun, sea, sand and relaxation.  But with crazy fuel charges, santa barbara beach front hotels sky high excesses and hard sell insurance, I felt financially battered and bruised and very much hard done by. Read on to find out what these costs are and how you can avoid them.
The voucher santa barbara beach front hotels in your hand says paid in full , yet here you are at the car rental desk trying to fathom how the car rental company came to the final amount that they are about to take off your credit card.  Sound familiar?  Here are the hidden, vague and down right ridiculous costs that you may find car rental companies pushing your way.
When you arrive at the car rental santa barbara beach front hotels desk, you are told about the excess.  That is, the first portion that you have to pay towards a vehicle damaged in your care (not necessarily that you damaged it). The rest is covered under the car rental company s insurance.  This excess seems to have risen over the past few years, so don t be surprised if it s around £600-£800 or even up to £1500 for certain cars. (Of course if the damage is less than the excess santa barbara beach front hotels amount, santa barbara beach front hotels you pay up to the cost of the damage).
The car rental company will try and sell you an excess waiver insurance.  And here is your first hidden cost.  You didn t think about adding the insurance on when you booked, but when the sales person at the desk presses home the high figure of, say £800 excess, the insurance seems a good idea.  However, the excess cover can be overly expensive.  It doesn t normally include tyres and windscreen which can be brought as an additional insurance.  With Budget car rental in Ibiza, for example, excess waiver plus windscreen and tyre cover is upwards of 12.60 euros per day. That s an additional 88 euros on your week s car hire (about £70 on today s exchange santa barbara beach front hotels rate).
All car rental companies offer car seat rental.  They offer different categories of car seat from group 0 up to boosters.  These costs are actually often easy to find before you book, but they are exceedingly high.  We found Europcar charge £11 per day for a car seat and £10 a day for a booster.  Adding a whopping £70-77 to your week s rental for one seat.  We can buy a booster for less than £20!
Sat navs are even more expensive to hire with one company charging almost £100 for a week s sat nav hire.  If map reading santa barbara beach front hotels isn t your thing, you can save yourself £20 and buy this Tom Tom UK and Western Europe santa barbara beach front hotels Sat nav from Amazon at less than £80!
Ok, in my view, these are the worst offenders largely due to the vagueness of the policies, and the unscrupulous ways they can be applied.  There are four ways you pay for fuel when you rent a car.  Good car hire companies offer you the first 3 as a choice.  There are, however, increasing numbers who are forcing santa barbara beach front hotels customers down an alternative, very expensive route; number 4 below.
santa barbara beach front hotels OR Take the car 1/4 empty and return 1/4 empty. This is a policy we came across only recently and seems to be becoming more popular, particularly in the UK.  In theory, you only pay for what you use, but you need to be able to judge a 1/4 tank when refilling in order to ensure you only pay for what you use. If you turn up short, you ll be liable for the fuel plus the refueling santa barbara beach front hotels charge of the car rental company.  We consider this a bit of a pain to carry out, rather than an excessive cost.
2. Pay up front at the car hire company s price per litre.  Now, this sounds a good deal at first.  Some companies offer to sell you the tank of fuel up front at a price less than that of the local petrol stations.  The catch is, of course, santa barbara beach front hotels that you are paying for the whole tank and you may only use half.  There are no rebates for any fuel left at the end of the rental period.  Nice try, but we won t fall for that one.
3. Bring it back for refuelling on site.  The company will tell you up front how much they charge per litre to refill, if you haven t refilled santa barbara beach front hotels it yourself and there is likely to be an additional refuelling fee (a flat fee for filling the tank).  Transparent costs, but often high.
4. Take it full and bring back empty.  This policy is the only policy offered by some rental companies, particularly on the Spanish islands and coastal resorts.  On a recent trip, our terms and conditions stated a charge of 75 euros would be made for the tank of fuel and that we should bring it back empty.  In a small car, that s a pretty high cost.  When we arrived at the car rental santa barbara beach front hotels desk, they put this cost on the bill at 100 euros, and we ve seen it as high as 120 euros at other places.  Thankfully, we had the cost reduced back to 75 euros, as we had a copy of the terms and conditions with us.  The problem with this policy is that it is expensive (a small car costs no more than 50 euros for a complete tank) and, unless you return the car completely empty, you are paying for unused fuel.  It is highly unlikely that you ll use a full tank and so your left with a grossly unfair charge.
The problem with these fuel policies is that they can be unclear santa barbara beach front hotels and worse still, some unscrupulous companies, santa barbara beach front hotels don t tell you until you re at the check in desk.  Your terms and conditions should state which fuel policy the company uses. If you use an intermediary to book your car, such as EasyCar or CarRental, they include wording in their terms and conditions such as local fuel policies will apply and sometimes you don t know what that policy is until after you ve booked.
Consumer Rights Campaigners, Which?, receive many complaints about car rental fuel charges, and carried out their own research into car rental in Alicante and Malaga, the sources of the majority santa barbara beach front hotels of complaints.  They found the fuel policies to be hidden and unfair. In one case, the fuel charge trebled the overall cost of the car hire compared to the original price for the rental.
Which? Travel expert, Rochelle Turner, said: "It's clear from our investigation that consumers are not being given the full facts about these extra charges. Our research has shown that these unavoidable fuel charges can triple the price of a rental, turning what seemed santa barbara beach front hotels like a good deal to potentially a very expensive one.
2. Don t book a car seat for your baby and/or children.  Most airlines will carry car seats for free in the hold .  Check with your airline first before you book a car seat with your hire car.  Not only will it save you costs, but gives you better peace of mind using a car seat you know the history santa barbara beach front hotels of.
5. If you cannot find the fuel charges until after you book, check the cancellation policy before you book.  Most car rental companies allow you to cancel without charge within santa barbara beach front hotels 24 hours of booking.  Get the booking voucher, check the terms and conditions, and if you re not comfortable with it, cancel straight away.  Note, even if your rental voucher states paid in full , it is not likely to include the petrol.
7. Consider taking out a separate car rental excess insurance. For around £39-£49 for an annual policy you can be insured against car rental insurance excesses, theft of the rental car and tyre and windscreen repair or replacement.  This works out much cheaper than the rental companies own insurances.  You can refuse any excess insurance cover offered to you by the car rental comnpany.  If there is an accident or theft, you then pay the excess or cost and contact the insurance company.  They have strict rules about when you contact them and the documentation you need to send them.
I personally recommend  www.insurance4carhire.com . Their cover isn t the cheapest on the market, but I have used them myself and was required to make a claim when a tyre blew out on the rental car I was driving.  I provided santa barbara beach front hotels the necessary documentation and they processed the claim swiftly and without issue.
If you ve found yourself facing unexpected costs at the car rental desk, then please do share your comments below.  And equally so, if you ve had a brilliant experience, then please do share those with us too.
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