recent car hire at palma anyone ?

[tievenaghtanya]

i was hoping for help regarding car hire for 5 may.
has anyone hired a car recently from palma airport and if so was pick up on site ?
we used avis in november , but they are asking £125 for 4 days in may which is quite expensive when holiday autos are quoting £53.
we normally use carjet but on reading some posts here they seem to be using companies off site now.

does anyone know which companies are still operating on site at the moment ,as we have an early flight back on 09 may and don t want to leave PP any earlier than we have to? hope you can help !

 

[pollensa]

Hi,

we have been using Record & Europa Goldcar who both have desks at the airport. We changed to Record as they had been offering the 'bring back the tank as you found it' i.e.no petrol charge. This time they had changed & it was either supply full & return full i.e. fill it up before you return or pay for the full tank & bring it back empty.

There are several options at www.puertopollensa.com/car-hire-majorca.html

 

[spudbag]

Hi there, this week I decided to book a car for June via Holiday Autos, but was concerned about whether the firm they use would be on the airport site or off the airport site.

So after getting the online quote, I rang them to see if they'd guarantee on-site pick-up. Their list showed the first two options were off-site (including the newly-moved Centauro) but the third option was Record.

They then allowed me to book over the phone but with the online price - however they did charge me an additional fiver for not taking the first two options. A bit of a liberty maybe, but worth it to avoid the whole courtesy bus treatment with our little ankle-biter and her grandparents in tow.

Hope this is of some help.

 

[Smiddy]

Car Hire

We have used Carjet quite a bit recently and have yet to be sent off the airport, would still highly recommend them. To be honest this off site story puzzles me as i've used them for many years and have yet to have a problem. The full tank can be a irritant, but on the other hand if we don't use the full tank it means the weather has been so good we just have'nt felt like touring.

 

[debz1]

I think you've been very lucky smiddy!

We always book with Carjet, and as they seek out the cheapest (usually off site)option this is what we are offered first. Having been caught once we know ask to be changed (normally it's Record), and as you say spudbag the additional fiver you are charged far outways the hassle of catching a bus

Debs

 

[tievenaghtanya]

Thank you everyone , info really helpful. We have booked with www.recordrentacar.com for £63.00 including booster seat. We wouldn`t normally mind a bus journey to collect a rental car but as I said we are very pushed for time on the return journey.
Also a plus is the policy of returning the car with same level of fuel as you collected it with. All the best, TT

 

[El Gordo]

Car hire on Airprt

Hola

I have used Drivespain as they use Europcar which is on site.
http://www.drivespain.com/car-hire/palma-majorca/index.php?ln=en&rf=

and Amigo that shows the car company in the quotes.
http://www.amigoautos.com/
Goldcar is onsite but Aurigacrown is off.

However, I currently book with Record and have joined the Record Club (on their website) which gives additional discount based on previous bookings. They also dont charge for petrol as long as you return it with the same amount in the tank. Which is good.

However I have one or two worries about Record:

Holiday Autos use them alot, so if you come in on a plane with lots of others who booked cars through Holiday autos the queue at Record can be very long. I have queued for over 2 hours before, not getting the car until midnight!! So I dive for the queue and leave the wife to collect the bags!!!

Another problem was that a single queue was so long, people started new queues in order to jump the queue. Others left the baggage area and tried to get their cars via the windows outside. This caused rows amongst who was next. They introduced a ticket system, like at the deli counter to try and be fair but this was removed because of an operational problem.

Record also push the additional insurance to cover the tyres, the underside of the car etc which can be expensive, although there is a maximum per booking. Ive taken out Insurance4carrental at home as a cheaper option if you hire a lot. http://www.insurance4carhire.com/termsConds.asp?curID=1&pID=9&langID=1&refID=100&prodID=80

Other than that I wish you an enjoyable Holiday

 

[Sharonh]

Gordon

Thank you for this very helpful advice. I had never heard of insurance4carhire before. It sounds just the ticket!

Sharon

 

[tievenaghtanya]

Hi Hola its GL,
Thanks for the info, especially the possibility of a long wait for the car, as the longest wait we have had has been around 20 mins. I am hoping a Monday in early May should be OK .If there is a long queue at the desk I won`t let it bother me as once I am on that plane to Palma I become soooo relaxed at the prospect of the delights waiting for us in PP that I can take anything in my stride. .......Wish I could say the same for my other half !!!
Thanks again
Tanya

 

[Tonsyl]

We hired a car via Holiday Autos at Easter and they used Goldcar who are in the airport multi storey car park. Very good car too!

 

[Mark1875]

Hola

I have used Drivespain as they use Europcar which is on site.
http://www.drivespain.com/car-hire/palma-majorca/index.php?ln=en&rf=

Did you know Drivespain are in fact Carjet using a different name?

 

[El Gordo]

Drivespain

Si Mark

but the Drivespain route only use Europcar so you know in advance where youll get the car from. I emailed carjet to ask if the could modify their system to show the supplier before you book. They gave me a spurious reply but directed me to Drivespain

 

[Timberman]

Be careful Drivespain don't always Goldcar now. I have been using them for many years. This year when I received my confirmation the hire company was Aurigos, spelling maybe wrong, who are off site and have had some bad reviews. When I e mailed to cancel my booking they agreed to hire via Goldcar at an extra cost, but changed their mind when I mentioned DoYou. Consequently they were cheaper than DoYou and it was through Goldcar.

This seems to be a change this year.

Timberman

 

[Lorenzo]

Car hire companies - change of parking lot locations at airport

Hola everyone
I've just returned from PP, and found that many of the hire car companies have moved around in the airport parking lot. I always used to use Record and they used to be on the far left hand side of the ground floor - now they've moved to the far right hand side.
Sixt (?) are now where Record used to be. I used Europcar this time (due to a great offer on the Easyjet website) and the are now tucked away on the left hand side just as you enter the parking lot. Avis was just next to them.
As mentioned elsewhere in posts, Centauro have now moved off site.
It looks like the changes have only just happened recently as some of the 'offices' in the parking lot area were still being constructed. The directional sign posts are already in position so it's a matter of following them - and not heading off in the direction that you are maybe more used to!
Europcar were very good, by the way. Great staff on the desk and a nice clean car as well. It was full of fuel when I collected it and I just had to return it full - so no problems there.

 

[sandradee]

Hi Lorenzo

Is the the same people /goldcar Europa - if so we had a terrible time. We used to always go with Centauro - could take car back with full tank. When you have to take it back empty it is always a pain - especially if you want to just use it for a few runs. We were charged 93 euros for Bellingo - it went back quarter full??

regards

Sandradee

 

[Disorderly]

There are so many different points of view with car hire!

Are you prepared to pay more to avoid having to fill the tank up when you're running late for the return flight?

Do you want to pay more to avoid the long queues at the cheapest car hire desks?

The choice is yours. Personally, I'm happy to pay for an easy life, within reason. We always use Goldstar/Europa. Yes, there are queues at popular times, but good, clean, relatively new cars and return with an empty tank at reasonable rates suits me.

But I do agree - avoid off-site at all costs.

 

[RingSpin]

Just used Europcar.
Booked online and prepaid at £126 per week.
No queue at the desk on arrival - which was a major plus for me after waiting for almost 2 hours at Record last year!
Upgraded car from the one I booked.
On site parking and return with a full tank. Refuelling took just 10 minutes extra at the nearest filling station.

 

[Ruthie Scandal]

Hi Everyone

Just returned from our first trip to PP, loved it.

We hired a car at Palma Airport from autosroig.com.

They were excellent. Waiting for us in arrivals, a few bits of paperwork and then the car was in the car park for us. The car had only done 7k miles and was immaculate. We hired a car seat which was very good quality (have had problems in the past with poor child seats so it as a big bonus). The car was diesel so v economical.

Returning the car was just as easy. They may not be the cheapest, but they were very good. I suppose you get what you pay for!!

 

[sws97sdg]

Hi Ruthie
we had a car from Ruig as well as part of our villa deal, they were waiting for us as well, I had prepaid for the fuel so all I had to do was to sign the form and that was it, record time of about 2 mins to pick up the keys. Car had 4k on clock clean and ready for us, paid 90 cents for tickets and picked it up from the 4th floor. Bringing it back just as painless, head for the arrivals carpark, drive up to the fourth floor, put the ticket and keys in their car there and away, would recommend them. Also even as it was 12.00 on Saturday on one of the busiest days of the year the queues for the other car hire firms in the airport were not too long, most seem to have a ticket system to help now.

 

[graham]

Ticking all the boxes

Gosh this car hire stuff is complicated.

Here are all the boxes I want to tick. Is there one single company that does it all:

1. On airport
2. Book through its own website (ie not through an intermediary)
3. Reasonable cost