Do Yourself a Favor! Read Your Rental Car Terms and Conditions!
One of the most important things that every rental car customer must do is to read the Terms and Conditions from the rental car company. It doesn’t matter if you’re booking with VroomVroomVroom (where we have helped customers save money on over 1.8 million bookings), with another comparison site, or directly with a supplier such as Avis, Budget, Hertz or Thrifty. You have to read and understand the Terms and Conditions to avoid unnecessary mistakes that could cost you!
We realize that time is precious and booking speed is important. In fact, we are proud to feature the fastest car hire search engine on Earth, in which you can easily book a vehicle for a business trip or holiday adventure in under 2 minutes. But slow down and take a few minutes to go over the Terms and Conditions! If you don’t read “the T&C”, well … as a ski instructor once said on the animated TV series “South Park”, “you’re gonna have a bad time”!
The car rental depot employees are there to help you. 99.999% of them won’t try to rip you off, nor will they let you drive away without signing a paper that states that you understand their company’s Terms and Conditions. They will explain everything to you with patience and kindness, but you have to be willing to listen.
VroomVroomVroom customer service representatives will also help you to understand the Terms and Conditions, either before or after you have booked, and either before or after you have an issue with the car rental company. But as friendly, knowledgeable and awesome as our customer service team is, ultimately it is YOU who must read “the fine print”!
“We call them ‘TNCs’,” said VroomVroomVroom International Customer Service Manager Terri Brown. “And TNCs are a bit like the airline safety talk. No matter how many times you have rented, it’s always best to read the TNCs.”
Brown added that VroomVroomVroom works tirelessly to inform customers of the Terms and Conditions, and that while some customers just skip them, it isn’t a good idea to do so. “There’s always someone that keeps reading, though,” Brown said.
With VroomVroomVroom there are NO HIDDEN FEES; they are displayed in the supplier Terms and Conditions. The terms highlight “This Quote Includes” and “This Quote Does Not Include”.
When booking online, it is agreed that when you click our “Book Now” button, you will read in full the supplier’s Terms and Conditions that display all fees. During the VroomVroomVroom booking process, Terms and Conditions are:
* Displayed on the booking page during the reservation process,
* Linked on the confirmation email,
* And then again on the reminder email
As always, feel free to contact our Customer Service team to clarify any questions.
See http://www.vroomvroomvroom.com/terms-and-conditions/ for Terms and Conditions for rental car bookings. Please note that they vary from country to country.
THE EXPERTS AGREE WITH VROOMVROOMVROOM
An exclusive story this month on News.com.au mentions that 43% of respondents to a new Canstar Blue survey of Australians “admitted they did not read the terms and conditions of the contract closely.” The article went on to say that a Canstar Blue spokeswoman said “it was irresponsible of motorists not to thoroughly read the hire car contract.”
Wikitravel.org has a lengthy article on Renting a Car, and it states that even when booking with a rental car company that operates globally, you have to read, understand and remember the Terms & Conditions you are agreeing to! “You can generally rely on them operating out of prime locations, such as in the airport terminal, rather than in the shed down the street,” states the Wikitravel site. “They usually run cars for a short period of time before updating their fleet. However, don’t think that because you are renting from a global operator you can rely on them to do the pre-rental car inspections correctly, or that their terms and conditions of rental are consistent.”
The bottom line, of course, is know what you’re getting into when you’re picking up the rental – or even better, before you book.
Jason Dickson is Digital Content Coordinator and a Car Rental Expert at VroomVroomVroom. He once drove a rental car for 21 hours in 2 days.
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About The Author
mic
Mic Florendo has been writing for more than ten years both professionally and personally. She enjoys writing about travel, food, music, movies, celebrity news, and cool cars.
After a complaint to EuRopcar about this very issue went unresolved and unacknowledged for a couple of months, an email to VroomVroom explained the above situation to me. Full marks to Jason for the above, which I think should be a permanent link on the site – preceded by something like: Before you sign the dotted line, click HERE.
Having said that, I remain disturbed by these “hidden charges”. It’s not good enough for rental car companies to blame their customers for the companies lack of transparency. Could VroomVroom check out the four or five companies (not that many) and ask that a condition of listing on your site be that they INCLUDE these fleabite charges into the cost of renting as stated on the VroomVroom site? That would surely lead to an even playing field; which is decidedly lopsided as it stands…
Peter
Hi Peter, thanks for your comment! I’m going to bring your suggestions to the attention of our own Terri Brown (the hardest-working customer service manager in our industry) and her team.
Also, just a small correction. VroomVroomVroom compares car hire for “the big 5” companies in Australia & New Zealand, plus Redspot in Oz. But then add Alamo, Enterprise, Green Motion and Sixt in Britain, and Advantage, Dollar, E-Z, Fox and National in the USA…
At last count, VroomVroomVroom keep track of Terms & Conditions for 17 rental car suppliers around the world. And some of those are slightly different from country to country!
Also do yourself a favour and don’t rent with Green Motion before checking them at http://green-motion.pissedconsumer.com/