8 important questions to ask when booking car hire

We've often used a family members car when we've visited the UK, but as we usually fly into Heathrow or more often Birmingham, it's one heck of a trip getting to South Wales or Bath to collect the vehicle and with family and friends living all over the UK, it's been easier on our last few trips to book car hire.

We've used one of the larger search engines to find the best deals, but there have been a few hiccups and often the place where we've had to collect the car from has involved a train, bus trip or walk to reach it. Service has often been slow and poor and not fun when you've just got off a long haul flight, lugging a 30kg suitcase and hand luggage.

On both the last two occasions, when we returned the vehicles there was some minor damage to the paint work, scuff marks and stone chips.

We took out Collision Waiver Damage, CWD, which almost doubled the initial costs advertised on the website with the booking company.

CWD means that any accident, theft or damage to the vehicle is covered fully, but it also means you lose your deposit to the actual car hire company and then you have to provide receipts which you forward to the booking company for a full refund.

Having your car hire and insurance with different companies worked well for us the first time and the £400 deposit was returned to our credit card before the payment was due.

However on the last trip, the deposit was £1200 and was retained by the car hire company, for 2 stone chips and a scuff mark that could've easily T cut out had I had the car cleaned before returning it. Receipts were forwarded as before, but this time I waited 3 months before the deposit was refunded, meaning I had to pay the credit card bill off in full. I only got my deposit returned after I threatened the booking company with the ombudsman. The delay was due to the car hire company not providing evidence of the cost of repairs, meaning I had to wait for them to refund the difference between the repairs and the deposit then the booking company refunding the cost of the repairs.

As a result and the difficulties in sorting things like this out from another country, I've decided to investigate booking direct, with everything in one place. The car hire and the insurance together is almost double the price of booking with one of the low cost companies, but the excess is very high and to reduce it to £0 the cost of hire, the cost almost doubles again.

It's not always transparent at the time of booking the T&C's of car hire and these are important questions to answer before renting a car.

1. Do you return the car empty or full?
2. Is the mileage limited?
3. What is the cost for an additional driver?
4. Is there an additional charge for drop off at another location?
5. Is CWD included? Is it with the car hire company or an independent?
6. Breakdown?
7. What is the excess? How do you recover your costs from CWD?
8. Windscreen and wheel rim protection?

I also think there should be some wear and tear allowance to vehicles, yes I'm responsible for scuffs to body work and damage to the paint, but stone chips are a bit difficult to avoid.

So I've gone back to using search engines and found a different one to book through this time. However I still have to collect the car from the place where I had the problems on my last visit. I've decided I'd rather keep the costs down, as I need car hire for 4 weeks and again in June for approximately 12 weeks.

Who do you use for car hire? Have you experienced similar problems?

What I'd do differently

If I was coming to South Africa now, knowing what I do, this is what I'd do differntly.

I'd get my visa sorted and in my hand before I did anything else...mind you I'd still need to choose a school in advance...to get the study visa.

First things first...

1. Visit the country you intend to move to

visit the banks, the mobile phone shops, find out who the car and house insurance companies are

find out what documents and conditions apply to do any of the above

drive around the area, hire a driver if necessary, look at various areas, prices for housing and visit as many schools as you can

get a list of house agents in advance, call them, find out rental prices, deposits

go shopping, especially the supermarkets, check out the cost of things, especailly cars and what requirements are in place to purchase one

talk to people

2. Use companies for the removal of your furniture based in the country you're moving to...they will know the regulations at customs, hidden charges etc..they will use a local agent in your home country that you will be able to communicate with. You need your visa number before they can ship your belongings.

3. If you own a property...do not move until you've either a) completed the sale or b) found tennants....it is cheaper and easier in the long run to rent a place than to leave your home country without having sorted yours out first, the same applies with all final bills associated with the property, the same also goes with a car, try and sell it as quick as possible or if you want to take it with you, get your country of arrival to arrange this.

4. get your post redirected to a busy person...someone that is prepared to open and scan your mail asap so you can sort any final demands quickly...you will also need a UK correspondence address for all mail associated with your bank accounts.

5. Make sure if you have temporary accomodation in your new country that it is in both your names, as you will need proof of residency to open up any and every account. In South Africa make sure you have at least one utility bill at your physical address in South Africa, if you choose to have a PO No.

Nothing is EVER easy

We’ve been in the country 88 days, not long is it?...I’ve never even visited South Africa before arriving here and Peter came for 1 week November 2010 to see if he liked it here.
In the UK, you know what you’re doing.....this is usually based on information from your family environment, friends and colleagues and from experience.......Mortgage providers, solve a dispute with a gas bill, best mobile phone contract....you know what magazines to read for reviews, you have a preference for a type of car and knowledge of how much things cost and whether you’re being ripped off or not...and if you don’t know.....you google, you ask.....
Well we don’t have any of that.......
We had no idea what so ever about anything in South Africa.....prices of cars.....who the insurance firms are...do we have a choice of provider for the electric....who operates the satellite TV...where to buy school uniform from?
We also had no internet, bank account or telephone.....so couldn’t google a thing.
What we did have was a good supportive network from the UK...mmmm we were wrong there...we opened up a bank account with the ‘World’s largest bank’ which would provide us with a credit history, off shore banking and a local bank account...they forgot to mention that off shore banking would cost more for each transaction as they don’t actually have a branch in SA, which means we can’t have local banking, which means we don’t have a credit history.
We couldn’t get a mobile phone or internet access as we didn’t have 3 months of bank statements (see above) so we couldn’t find out what we needed to do and how to do it.
We had to do everything at the same time...we needed a house to rent...but needed to phone agents...we needed a car to visit the houses to rent...but needed a bank account to finance a car...
I’m a resourceful person and although there was a HR person, who has since left the company (I for one won’t miss them), all they did was sort out Peter’s contract, rent an apartment for 6 weeks, in their name...so we had no proof of address, put us in touch with an agency to sort the Visa’s and authorised our expenses in regards to getting here....(see previous blogs for Removal Company, Driving Licence and Visa hassles, you don’t need to go back too far...we only started the whole process in November 2011)
Peter is trying to settle into his new job, different cultures, languages, methods of doing business, thankfully the children were sorted in school within 48hrs so I wasn’t dragging them around...I took to the streets, quite literally, I had to walk and drive to places armed with a local map of the area, no sat nav....prior to coming out here the advice I was given was not to do this...I stood on street corners, panicking as I made telephone calls and arrived unannounced at the kids schools and pleaded to use the internet to contact house agents. I walked into chemists and asked for advice on how I use the med aid card?...how I get a dentists?...the local cafe owner drew me a map for the local library, so I could study.
So everywhere I go and everything I need to do this is how it goes.....
‘I’m from England.....I’ve only been in the country xxxx weeks, I don’t know how things works here, please will you help me?’
Then these are the additional questions we now know we need to ask.......
‘Does the copy have to be stamped? And who would you like me to stamp it?...the school, the bank...the police...’(utility bills, DSTV)
‘Does this form need a witness to sign?...do you supply the witness or shall I get one?...can it be a stranger off the street (Customs) can it be my husband? (permission to have my own bank account) can it be my son? (Library card)’
‘Do I need additional forms, to the ones you’ve just told me about?’...
Everywhere we go and for everything we do we carry the following...even if they have a certified stamp, you still have to show original.....
Passport
Visa
Contract of employment
Proof of residency
Driving Licence, paper and photo card and The AA International Driving Permit
Bank Statement – Current
...and that is just the bare minimum
There’s always something else they’ll ask for.
The reason I write this today is Peter is on his 3rd visit to the Vehicle Licensing Department to prove that he is allowed to buy a car...I can’t buy my own car as my visa is for a visiting, therefore I can’t get my own finance, Peter can...We already have the car, it has plates, I have Insurance in my own right...thanks to ‘OUTsurance’...and another thing we also found out is when someone says to you...’It’s OK don’t worry about anything, we will sort it all out for you’....means we’ll forget to tell you something and you’ll have to do it...usually within 72hours...’you don’t need any paperwork...just the copy of your passport........’