Planning
Car rental without the surprise at the desk
Car rental has the widest gap between quoted price and final bill of anything in travel. Almost all of it comes down to three decisions made at the counter, and all three can be settled before you get there.
6 min readPublished
The excess is the number that matters
Nearly every quoted rate includes damage cover with an excess — the amount you are liable for before the cover starts. It is routinely four figures, and it is held against your card for the duration of the rental.
You can reduce it to zero by buying the rental company's own waiver at the desk, or by buying standalone excess insurance from an independent insurer beforehand, which is typically far cheaper. The trade-off with standalone cover is that you pay the rental company first and reclaim afterwards.
Fuel policy
Full-to-full is the only policy that cannot cost you money: you collect a full tank and return a full tank. Anything else — pre-purchase, full-to-empty — means buying fuel at the company's rate with no refund for what you leave in the tank.
Drivers and documents
Anyone who might drive must be named on the agreement. An unnamed driver at the wheel voids the cover completely, which turns a minor scrape into an uninsured loss.
Bring the physical licence, the card the booking was made on in the main driver's own name, and where required an International Driving Permit. A digital licence is not accepted at most counters.
Before you drive away
Photograph the car from every corner, including the roof, the wheels and the windscreen, with the timestamp on. Do the same at return. This takes three minutes and resolves virtually every damage dispute before it starts.
