I was persuaded by rachel1431's comprehensive review from 2005 to give Europa Goldcar at Palma airport a try.
But as she suggested, I booked directly through their website (http://www.europa-rentacar.es/en) rather than using the broker Carjet.
Before booking
A couple of things made ... Read review
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Advantages: Best value at Palma airport - no insurance excess Disadvantages: Fuel policy - no refund for unused fuel
...review from 2005 to give Europa Goldcar at Palma airport a try.
But as she suggested, I booked directly through their website (http://www.europa-rentacar.es/en) rather than using the broker Carjet.
Before booking
============
A couple of things made me hesitate before going ahead. First I'd never heard of them. Not surprising as they only seem to operate in Spain and the Balearic islands. However, ... ...for six days in October. Europa Goldcar were quoting 108. When you're hurrying back to the airport at the end of your holiday you're not going to risk letting the tank fall below about a quarter, especially in a car you're not familiar with and which might not have an accurate fuel gauge. Small cars tend to have tanks of around 40-45 litres. So you're bound to be giving the car back to them with 10-15 euros worth of fuel in it. So that takes the ... more
I was persuaded by rachel1431's comprehensive review from 2005 to give Europa Goldcar at Palma airport a try.
But as she suggested, I booked directly through their website (http://www.europa-rentacar.es/en) rather than using the broker Carjet.
Before booking ============
A couple of things made me hesitate before going ahead. First I'd never heard of them. Not surprising as they only seem to operate in Spain and the Balearic islands. However, their website says they have a fleet of 16,000 cars, renewed every six months. So evidently they're not exactly a small operation.
The other thing I wasn't initially happy about was their fuel policy. When you pick up the car they charge you for a full tank of fuel and you get no refund when you return the car, so you should try to leave the tank as empty as possible. I found a lot of comments on the internet grumbling about this policy. It grates for a lot of people that its seems unfair that you should be charged for fuel that you don't use. Holiday Autos use Hiper Rent in Palma airport and they have the same fuel policy.
However, I looked at this way. The cheapest rate I found from the international car hire firms was around 160 euros for six days in October. Europa Goldcar were quoting 108. When you're hurrying back to the airport at the end of your holiday you're not going to risk letting the tank fall below about a quarter, especially in a car you're not familiar with and which might not have an accurate fuel gauge. Small cars tend to have tanks of around 40-45 litres. So you're bound to be giving the car back to them with 10-15 euros worth of fuel in it. So that takes the price to around 120 euros - still a lot less than the international firms.
As rachel1431 pointed out, they also offer you insurance for the wheels. Like her, I accepted this, as it's quite easy to damage wheels and hubcaps. A year after her trip the price had gone up from 10 to 15 euros. So the total was 135 euros - still less than the competition.
But the key issue that persuaded me to go ahead was the fact that they have no insurance excess for damage. If you hire from any of the international firms, you generally remain liable for the first 400-600 euros (the excess) even if you take all the insurance they offer. So the extra costs for unused fuel and for wheel insurance seemed like money well spent to have a car where you were not liable for any damage.
Finally, Goldcar are open 24 hours a day, unlike some of the other firms which charge you extra if you arrive after their normal closing times, which might be 10pm or earlier.
Picking up the car ==============
I took the advice in Rachel1431's review and took action to try to avoid the queues at the Goldcar office. I arranged for the rest of the family to collect the bags and I went on ahead with just my hand baggage.
I assumed the car hire offices would be somewhere in the main arrivals hall after leaving the baggage claim area and going through the customs area. In fact, Goldcar's office, ( and I think a number of other car hire offices) are located between the baggage hall and the arrivals meeting area and have desks facing both sides. This means they have a desk facing out over the baggage area and on the opposite side of the office they have a window facing out to the public area of the arrivals hall. In the case of Goldcar, when I arrived around 9pm on an October evening they had three staff on the baggage hall side of the office and only one at the single window that looks out over the public arrivals hall side. And having gone through the customs area I couldn't go back to get onto the side with three staff. As it turned out, I didn't have any problems. There was just one other person waiting ahead of me and I was served quite quickly. But I was slightly concerned by a notice saying that at busy times precedence would be given to arriving customers on the baggage hall side of the office. I hoped they weren't suddenly going to move all their staff to the other side to deal with the queue of half a dozen or so people that was building up on the baggage hall side.
There was just one minor glitch. I handed over the booking confirmation showing the price of 108 euros. The woman checked the booking on the system and began to print out the documents. (Unlike rachel1431, I hadn't paid anything in advance. I simply had a booking confirmed by Europa Goldcar by email in English.) She asked me if I wanted the wheel insurance cover and I agreed to that. She explained the fuel policy (all in excellent English) and said the charge would be 51 euros for the VW Polo I was getting. As I expected this was a little above the market rate for a tank which I think holds 45 litres. But the surge in petrol prices in mid-2006 meant that it probably hadn't been above the market rate earlier in the year, even though prices had by autumn fallen back to around one euro per litre. She then said the charge for the hire would be 123 euros. I pointed out that my email said 108 and she immediately apologised and said the system had got the wrong price and she would adjust it.
So that was all done after about five minutes of queuing and three or four minutes of printing out the car hire document.
Finding the car ============
Reading rachel1431's review I visualised myself arriving in the dark and struggling to find our car in an unwelcoming outdoor car park.
In fact, just opposite the airport terminal is a second building which I thought at first was a second terminal building. The two are linked by a brightly-lit moving walkway, so it's easy to get from one building to the other. It was only when we returned at the end of the week that I realised the second building might only be a multi-storey car park, though built in such a sympathetic style that you wouldn't guess that's what it was. We rode on the moving walkway across to the other building where Goldcar have another office. Here they give you the car key and tell you which bay the car is parked in. And that's it. Because there's no excess on the insurance they don't ask you to sign a form agreeing to a description of the car's condition.
And for the same reason, when you return the car, you just park it, walk along to the office and hand over the key. No paperwork is done. They don't even check whether you've actually brought the car back, though perhaps they can see it on a video camera or something.
In summary =========
The VW Polo we had was fine - a few months old, 15000 km but in good condition. All in all, a very pleasant experience. I wonder whether the fact that the fuel policy grates on anglo-saxon sensibilities is a cultural thing. Maybe the Spanish think this is a perfectly reasonable way of doing business. In New York it's considered perfectly normal to pay taxi drivers vastly more than the meter shows (it's quaintly called tipping) but people from Japan or Hong Kong where (I believe) taxi drivers don't expect tips might think this American practice was grossly unreasonable. Maybe these are all just cultural differences that we have to accept. When in Rome, do as the Romans do... (as they say.)
Advantages: Non... Disadvantages: Customer service, payment system, ruined start of your holiday..
We had a terrible experience with Goldcar in ALICANTE, spent 3 hours at their desk, always being dumped because of a customer behind us as if we were not customers ?! We booked a car from Goldcar online (using their Dealer "AutoEurope"), then when we arrived we had to pay the the fuel deposit. We had a VISA credit card and they tried using it and said it doesn't go through. We didn't have another credit card, they don't accept cash. But we used this ... ...working fine, never had issues with it before. We rang our bank, it said everything is fine with the card and they don't see that anyone would have been trying to charge it (Goldcar). Which means that there was something wrong with Goldcar's card processing system.. Then we were told to ring Autoeurope as they were the one's we dealt with the booking. After a number of attemps to reach Autoeurope we finally got to talk to them based in UK. They told ...
Migle_Ireland 18.05.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Europa Rent a Car
Advantages: Very Cheap Very Easy Very Nice Car - Infact Very Good all round Disadvantages: Long queue to pick up Vehicle
...Whilst this review is about Europa Rent a car I booked my rental through a broker Carjet.com so the website description and booking procedure actually refers to Carjet.com NOT Europa's website itself. The rest of the review and opinions refer to Europa Rent a Car.
A Bit More Info
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Ok now I think its only fair to point out that Carjet.com is simply a broker. They use different car hire companies dependant on the place you are hiring ... ...was Europa Goldcar Rent a car - this review is actually about them not the website for the broker.
Background
=========
In January this year my bezzie (who is German and lives in Germany) contacted me to see if we would like to spend a week on Mallorca with her and her partner in a Finca (Mallorcan farmhouse).
My partner and I though this was a great idea and promptly agreed to go, booked the finca and booked the flight.
Only when this was done ...
rachel1431 27.07.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Europa Rent a Car
Advantages: None Disadvantages: Appear to be cheap - they then add extra insurance which does not cover tyres
Returned from holiday to find they had added 150 euro charge without any consent from myself on my credit card. They refuse to reply to any e-mails and never offered an explanation until credit card company got involved. The charge was for a damaged tyre. After checking many forums - this appears to be one of their scams. They supplied an invoice which was not dated so it could have referred to any repair previously made to the tyre. We were in Lanzarote ... ...surprised the tyre came from Mainland Spain all the way to Lanzarote. We are still fighting this and I don't intend to give up. They are not the only comany to do this so beware. Always get someone to check the car and give their signature before you head off home as it it much harder to sort from another country. Unfortunately they get away with it far too much. I can't believe credid card companies can just give them the money without even checking. ...
Wewerehad2 28.09.2009
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Europa Rent a Car
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Quick review of Europa Rent a Car
Very poor experience.
The line at the Malaga airport was over one hour long.
Worse, after returning home we were falsely charged 120 euros for "lost keys" although we returned the keys to their drop box outside their office when we returned the car at 6:00 AM. It appears they are either careless at retrieiving keys from their box or they are trying to scam more money from this rental car. ...
cindy9521 08.05.2007 (07.05.2007)
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Europa Rent a Car
Advantages: none, not even cheep for the product Disadvantages: Car booked not available, company rep inflexible.
If you have a family and want and easy smooth trip, don't use Goldcar! Just got back Sunday the 13 July 2008 we booked in advance with Goldcar via CarJet.com Travel network and agreed 7 day rental of a Renault Megane Scenic A/C (L) vehicle code ESP10 at 159.00 EUR to be collected from Palma Arrivals Hall Desk. This was for my wife a 2 yr old, a 4 yr old, my elderly father and myself. (3 adults 2 children.) The Sting
Even though we confirmed availability ... ...the desk are printout at 11.30pm with 2 sleeping children she said NO! The booking is good but we do not have any big cars left! We only have a fiesta for you.
we explained that we had 3 adults 2 children 4 suite cases and hand luggage and all she could say was "head office in Spain is closed there is nothing I can do" "You can ring them Monday and complain" I enquired further about the safety issues and as to what alternatives she could offer but ...
tokyojoe 13.07.2008
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Europa Rent a Car
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Advantages: Fantaastic website fantastic service - All together a pleasure Disadvantages: you may not get the car you book BUT will be as good if not better
PreAmble
=
Whilst this review is about Carjet.com which is a broker. I hired my car from Palma Airport and the hire company the broker had used was EuropaRent a Car. (See separate review for this). This review only really deals with Carjet.com website itself not the actual car I hired this is why I have written a seperate review for that.
My Search
Always one to be looking for a bargain I set about searching the net for the best priced car hire in Mallorca.
I spoke to a friend and he recommended that I try www.carjet.com. So I did. He had used them many times and been highly happy with the service he had received and said that the prices were great.
So I tried them and got my car cheaper than any of the other sites I had tried. 123 Euros for the week for a Renault Clio with aircon in mid July ...
rachel1431 27.07.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of CarJet
Advantages: many destinations, fabulous website Disadvantages: really expensive
They work as the others, nothing special. In many locations they have their own offices, but in Spain, they only work as a broker. They take your booking, you have to pay in advance, and they send your booking to a provider such Europarent a Car or Record.
I have been comparing prices, with the nexts dates:
Car Group Ford Ka 3 doors aircon, from 14.02.05 to 21.02.05, with full insurance and no excess.
Sixt.de: The web is really good, nice and fast. The price for the week is 139 euros. You have to pay with credit card trought the web site. If not, you can not make the booking.
Cancellation costs: yes, the amount depends of when do you cancell it. You can avoid the cancellation costs paying 5 euros more on the moment that you make the booking.
Carjet.com: Good website, nice and fast. The price for the week is 116 euros (pay ...
martinagarau 01.02.2005
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: somewhat helpful Review of Sixt
Advantages: Irish hospitality, architecture, Guinness and pubs with character Disadvantages: Brrrr! It's darn cold there in Oct and it rains more than even in London
feel as if I would need a guide to the sights outside of the city. Or perhaps I just needed a better travelling companion, next time! And on the way home, I heard a news item about a car bomb in the centre of Belfast having been diffused, so life is always timing, isnt it? I would go there on business again and this time stay at the Europa Hotel, take in another event at the Grand Opera House, then rent a car and go see the Giants Causeway, Irish Castles, and of course find a small pub where the music is playing and the Guinness is flowing, and they ask me to sing something. I have been practising. ...
Reynarda 23.11.2002 (22.12.2002)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Belfast in general
