Rent-A-Car Services. To rent or not to rent?

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Hello Everybody, I have recently changed jobs and my new one is as a car rental agent. I've only been working here for a couple of months but I think I can provide some good advice for people looking to rent a car when they travel on business or on vacation. 1. Base Price First and foremost whe should talk about money. usually when you ask about the rental price or see it in some brochure it's the base, per day, rental price without taxes. For example: In my brochure a BMW series 1 costs 69E/day. Add VAT (24% where I'm from) to that and you get a little over 85 Euros. Be sure to check as you can get a better base price if you rent for a longer period ( over 3 days for example) 2. Warranty A deposit is usually required when renting, so check that as well. For example, where I work series 1 BMW requires a 595 Euro warranty deposit. Usually the warranty includes VAT. 3. Payment I think that, by far, the easiest form of payment is with a credit card. If you travel to another country with a different currency this is the easiest way to pay. It saves you the bother of dealing with currency exchange issues, it's fast and safer. 4. Insurance Coverage Usually all rental cars are insured against theft, collision damage, etc. But be carefull, if you do get involved in an accident, you have to ask the other party involved for insurance, and better yet, call the police. You need an authorization for repair, either for the police or from the insurance company in order to be covered. Scratches and dents with no author come out of your warranty deposit. When you pick up the car the agent usually checks for existing damages, you should to this too, and politely point out any dents/scratches the agent omits to mark on the check-out damages diagram on the rental agreement. 5. Other Tips/Info When travelling, if you plan to rent a car it's a good idea to shop around a little before hand. Check online for prices and make a reservation. You should allways go for an economy class. These cars are most asked for and you might even get an upgrade if there's no economy class car available for your reservation. If you get an upgrade, you pay the base price for the car you reserved but you need to deposit the warranty for the car you get. Watch out for other hidden taxes and fees. Usually there's an airport fee if you rent from an airport, or some other kind of fee (cross-border/collection/delivery/one way fee) , depending on where you're going and where you pickup/deliver the car. Do not prepay for gas, that's what gas stations are for. When you bring back the car make sure you have the same amount of gas in it as when you left. Usually the cars have a full tank. If you exceed the included mileage you have, do some quick math and check to see if it's cheaper to extend another day rather than pay the extra mileage fee. Steer clear of extras like GPS... for instance gps for one week where I work costs 56 E. And you can actually buy one in a supermarket 2 kilometers away for 80 or 90 Euros. Or better yet grab a road map at any gas station. If your tight for cash and don't want to pay airport fees and stuff like that check online to see what other rental companies are in the city. They have better rates and usually no fees attached if you pick up the car directly from them. Grab a cab or a bus from the airport to the city. Also if you arrive today, but want to go straight to the hotel and only need the car starting tommorow, ask about delivery fees. Most of the time the delivery fee is the same as the airport fee. And you can't be charged with both. Arrange so that the car will be delivered to your hotel the next day, and grab a cab form the airport to the hotel. 6 Haggle. You can allways try haggling over the price. Depending on the agent/company you can get discounts just by asking for them. For instance, where I work I only get comission based on the number of contracts, not the contract's value. So naturally as soon as somebody asks about a discount I offer the maximum. For instance a series 3 BMW has a 89 Euro base price, and the lowest price I can offer it for is 69 E the same as the inferior class series 1 BMW. If you are an older customer whose rented before from the same company you can demand a discount. There's a lot of other stuff, but I can't think of them all right now. What about you guys? Have you had any experiences (good or bad) when renting a car?