HolidayCars
Reviews and Complaints

Rental [protected]
I hired a car through you for pick up at Funchal Airport, my experience was appalling. Over the years I have hired cars for pick up at airports throughout the world more than a hundred times, this occasion was the worst. I make the following points :-
1 :- The car hire reps were not at the airport to great us
2 :- Funchal airport help desk could not help
3 :- We had no contact details for the car hire company, SurPrice. Had to phone UK for hire company phone number
4 :- Contacted SurPrice to pick us up, waited 30 minutes
5 :- Asked driver to help me with my cases and was told "I am not a baggage handler". I am 81 years old and a registered disabled, what a disgrace
6 :- Taken to Sur price compound and asked why they did not meet us at the airport and were told they did not have our flight number
7 :- Agents then demanded a surcharge fee because it was 20mins after 20.00hrs. It was after 20.00hrs because it took us 1 hour to be picked up. What a disgrace.
8 :- My name was spelt incorrectly on your booking form so they would not accept my credit car as bond, after 20 mins of arguing they relented and still wold not accept my card but accepted my Son's
9:- SurPrice driver and mate refused to give me their names for future complaint although the senior of the two eventually gave me his name.
10 :-The car was excellent, no problems whatso ever. In light of this horrible experience that could have ruined our holiday, I am looking for substantial recompence for this incident. my discomfort from this situation nearly justifies publishing on Social Media. I strongly recomend that the two Surprice employies be removed from their position.
R M Banks

I have submitted an Insurance Claim to Holiday Cars.Com and have heard nothing from them other that the holding email saying it could take 28 days.

That was on the 18th June.

I am out of pocket with an unpaid insurance claim, after having take out the full insurance with them.

I have tried calling and after 17 minutes of hold music, they hang up. I have also emailed again through the portal with no response.

Kind regards
Sarah Rice

Hi,
Reference number: US600832390
I made reservation for the 31 May to rent a bigger car of 7. I called in advance 4 days before picking the car to change the dates to 02 june and return 03 June.
The lady from your customer support told me all was fine and i should receive a confirmation mail the next day. As i did not receive this confirmation mail i sent an mail to customer services asking what had happened. The mail i then received back said no action was taken on your requested changes. Lord! My second attemt call to customer services, i request the changes once again and tell them about my previous call once again they tell me all is changed now. The lady from your customer services confirms all is fine now and all will be fine and i should use the same confirmation number, what seems weird and wrong to me. I had to trust her because as i had no choice, even at this time her tone on phone changed. She wanted just to get rid of me, due to all my questions and the clarifications i need answers to. I ended up trusting this woman from your customer servives (what was i to do?).
The day of pickup came that's when the diserstar began. The address for pick up was wrong and we went looking for the place in more than an hour asking around and nobody knew anything. Am having my 6 visitors waiting (note this). After a long wait on phone to get in touch with ACE, the car renting offices, the customer services note me that the adress we had was very old more than 1 year ago. We then drove to the this new adress..note that you customer serves was is closed during weekends. When arriving to ACE offices i handed the voucher and it was a non exicting. The voucher for the new dates that was confirmed on phone was non existing instead, there was no show on my first booking for 31 May, which was to be cancelled from your offices. To me this seems as your sytem does not work together with ACE sytem plus this lady at ACE had never heard about holidaycar. How many mistakes can you guys make in a reservation...in this case i think your customer services would at least have called to check with ACE if there was a car for good service, instead of confirming something out of the blue. Ace said this is normally how other companies work.
Truely you guys are bluffed me with my reservation and time as well! Shame on you guys!
Unfortunately ACE did not have any cars for 7 that day so we ended up making a whole new reservation which cost us bubbel the price since it was last minut and we also ended up waisting more than 3 hour on your so called bluff reservation and confirmation having 6 people waiting. You guys are a joke! I have already started sharing my story and will keep on since this is awful. NEVER EVER HOLIDAYCAR and i do not want to receive anything advertisning on my mail since its all junk.
Thank you for reading !
Best regards
Jacqueline Svensson

I booked a rental car (and paid a hefty deposit!) and tried to cancel it in the free cancel window (up to 48 ours before pickup). I called multiple times and made three online mail attempts to cancel the car. I received no response until less than 48 hours until pick up when they wrote back that they would not cancel the booking. Still no one is picking up the phone and now not replying to my other emails or requests for communication. I want my money back!

I booked a hire car ref above. I arrived at Green Motion at Edinburgh airport and had all the relevant paperwork except I had left my debit card at Heathrow. I was, therefore, unable to provide this to the Green Motion staff. they would not accept my American Express card and therefore refused to hire me the car. I spoke to an employee of Holiday Cars ( Cherif) in your office who was unable to use my payment with an alternative car hire provider and she promised to process my claim for reimbursement for the £185 paid. I have heard nothing from you even after emailing now three times to your support team. in summary, Green Motion has not been paid, they did not provide a car to me so were able to rehire this vehicle and I had to use an alternative provider at the airport at considerable cost.

Also inSpetmeber 2018 I was also unsuccessful in hiring a car through your organization via Green motion as I was not told to provide a DVLA check code this again meant I had paid Holiday cars for a vehicle that I was not allowed to have by Green Motion another loss of £200.! You must ensure that on the voucher you tell your customer to provide this check code. You do not and whilst at the Green motion desk, two further customers were unable to hire cars from Green Motion. Finally, Green Motion is a rubbish company I have never experienced such appalling customer service and rudeness.

I await your response

I booked via Kayak.com and thought that I booked with Hertz as that was stated, but booked through holidaycars.com.
Do not use this company! They are a scam.
I have booked a car for Sunday 6 January to be picked up at 13:00.
At 13:00 I was at the airport with all my luggage etc, and I had not received a voucher yet. I called and all I got was that they were not sure how long it would take and that I would have to wait. I waited for a few hours but I still did not receive the voucher. On Monday I called the company but they were still closed (I was in Sydney Australia and apparently the company was based in Amsterdam so it was still during the night. I waited again till 21:00 Sydney time, they finally picked up and told me the car was canceled. I had already booked accommodation outside of Sydney which I had to cancel and had to find and pay for 2 night extra in Sydney in a new hotel. Eventually, I went back to the hotel to book a new car and I received a confirmation. Now I am using the car and the service at Hertz was perfect. However, I have paid for the car for 2 days but did not receive the car during that time. I have been trying to contact the company to get a refund for those 2 days but they are ignoring me. Such a terrible company.

I am complaining about the car rental company that was used.
Reference number:4585820
Firstly we had to wait over an hour for our car in the dark after arriving. Then we were told the car had been pre-checked, which it had not. We also reported that the water for the windscreen wipers wasn't working but was told this is normal. But this is dangerous in a coastal city. Then after filling up our vehicle at the airport garage{as per contract: Full to Full}. We were charged a subsequent amount of 4l of fuel on our invoice. We have used your company for Car hire many times and this is the first time we have had so many problems. We are posting a review on the website too.
https://holidaycars.azureedge.net/voucher/en/908053/b9fe68ab-5173-41fc-9532-661bd387fb9f/voucher.pdf?caching=1535881620
This is our voucher.

All I can say is ****BUYER BEWARE***** I booked through Kayak on 2/15/18 and I thought I was booking through Thrifty, which the website stated. I made a huge mistake when it took me to a third party site, Holidaycars.com. I should have known better when it asked me for my credit card but I wanted to make sure I had a car reserved. I booked the car for three days at LAX. My wife informed me later that we could use my daughters car for two days so I needed to change the reservation. I could not get through to Holidaycars.com and could not change the reservation on their website. When I arrived at Thrifty I again stated that I needed to change the reservation to one day but they spend an hour and could not. They gave me a new reservation. When I dropped the car off I again notified them that I needed to change the reservation. The agent said he took care of it. On my credit card I saw that I had been charged for three days from Holidaycars.com and one day from Thrifty. After numerous calls to both, Holidaycar.com is based in the Netherlands, they noted their fine print and would not reimburse me. Therefore, trying to save a only a few dollars costed me $177. I thought by using a legit website like Kayak and car company like Thrifty I would be protected but I was wrong. I can only tell you about my experience so you can make your own determination.

I am so tired of them. Will this ever end? They haven't resolved my issue yet because they can't find a person who's responsible for ... cancelations!
Oh god, does it happen so rarely or what?
Well, I reserved a car but then changed my mind. Called them to do it (I thought it would be the best way to directly call them). The first representative said he can't be responsible for operations like this, so he transferred me to another one who said the same. 7 SEVEN 7 transfers to different people who didn't help me at all.
So as I said the issue hasn't been resolved. Oh god, what a bunch of idiots!

I booked a car in Barcelone, Spain. Needless to say, they were veeeeery quick in taking my money. Just BAAAAM and it's gone...
I waited for 2 days or them to send me a confirmation email. but had never received it.
Then I called their customer support and wrote a couple of emails. Never replied. Don't know what to do.
I would even be happy to cancel this crap, but I don't know how. I mean I know how I am just not sure my money will be refunded.
Who knows what I have to do next?

I always plan wayyyyyy ahead of time, so I rented a car almost 2 months before visiting. I paid all the money they wanted and waited for my vacation. However, two days before my trip I found out they canceled my reservation. Thanks to my natural paranoia I was checking everything before leaving and noticed it on their website. I didn't get any email from them. What would have happened if I hadn't checked it? Their customer service didn't offer anything to simplify my life and didn't provide any adequate reason for cancellation. What they wanted from me was more money, and these actions I consider a total scam.
Thank you for my ruined trip.

Hello,

I rented a car with Holiday Cars on July 1st. I reserved the car in advance online and paid in full for the reservation. I was running late to pick up my rental, but couldn't find anything too specific about late pickup times (only late returns) so I didn't worry. When I arrived I was informed that my car had been given away. My only option was to pay for an upgrade, and I was also told that the insurance I already paid for was insufficient. I searched their website and everything I had been sent and again found nothing specific about late pick up and giving cars away. So instead of €88, I ended up spending €210. Someone at the counter (the actual rental company was called Buchbinder) told me Holiday Cars should refund the difference for me. When I contacted Holiday Cars customer service afterwards they sent me some very specific terms of service that were suddenly accessible on their website.

I have included my voucher and correspondence with their customer service. Please let me know if you require any more information.

Thank you,
Ashley DuPree

07/07/17

I have booked a rental car with them for 145€.

After 3 days the send me an email to my spam inbox saying the booking has changed and the price is now 219€ because the rental car company owner of the car modify its terms.

Their policy is 48h prior of the pickup full refund. My surprise came up the day before the pickup date I check by chance my spam Inbox and I found out this change of the price. Therefore I claim a full refund because those prices are way higher than market price. It took me 2 hours to fill up the cancellation form and even though my internet connection was Fiber 300Mb their servers were very slow. But after 2 hours I was able to cancel it.

Really bad experience. Next time I will book directly with the rental car company

I reserved a car in my name with credit card in my husbands name for May 2-10. Was denied pick-up of original reservation because of card having my husbands name on it instead of mine even though I had both our ID's. Ended up paying twice as much with another company and was refused any refund from Holiday cars and Advantage Car rental due to the fine print stating that card must match lead drivers' license and my husband was not present. I fail to see why my reservation was denied when I made it in my name and had the card used for the original reservation plus ID for both of us. I figured there would be some kind of charge for my mistake but was denied any refund because of that fine print. Horrible customer service! Stick with well known rental companies people! Rate seems too good to be true because it is. I will never use their service again and would not recommend them to anyone! It should be illegal to keep someone's money for a service that was never provided. Thanks for nothing Holiday Cars! :(

I used holidaycars.com to book a car for our vacation in Italy, I was to get the car with Enterprise, on September 10, 2016. We had a rental voucher stating that we has paid in full. Our voucher number was [protected]. We had even given our flight number as requested. Our flight was delayed an hour and when we got to the rental company to pick up our car they had already given it away and had nothing else to offer us.

My husband, daughter and I were stranded at the airport with no car. We tried calling the 24/7 “emergency line”, it was in Italian and only an automated message that hung up on us. We tried this number many times. We ended up having to find a ride to our accommodations for the night (an hour away) and make a trip back to the airport the next morning to rent a car from another rental company and pay again. Once back in Canada I was able to find an email address to contact them through they did reply to tell me that they would not offer me a refund. This is not an acceptable business practice, I would actually call it fraud.

Hi,
My name is Ozgur Tasel, I booked and made a prepayment for the No Risk warranty package ($462) at holidaycars.com website, whenever I arrived to the rental agency Fox Rent a Car in Miami. They told me that I must buy warranty package an there is no prepayment for any warranty package. They show me a total different payment terms and ask for around 2700$ for the rental (despite the amount from holidaycars.com is around 960$ at the pickup). I came across a very bad situation with my 8 months pregnant wife searching for alternatives at the rental agency at the airport. I tried to make another booking (still I trust holidaycars.com), unfortunately site doesnt allow booking for the same day pickup. Therefore, I cancelled and have to rent from another agency due to major conditions caused by my wife’s pregnancy.
I kindly ask them to review the situation with Fox Rental and refund my early payment for the No Risk Warranty that I couldn't use. I still have no feedback from [protected]@holidaycars.com

Whilst Traveling in Australia my partner and I hired a hire car on the 10th November 2009 through the internet company holidaycars.com. Holidaycars uses cars from larger companies such as Thrifty, Avis etc depending on availability. In our case Holiday cars had booked us with Thrifty.

Unfortunately the car was hit whilst parked in a car park, the Bull bars of 3rd party hit into the left wheel arch of our car. We were able to get the details of the driver and informed holiday cars and Thrifty immediately. We had taken out full insurance with Holiday Cars and the policy states that we will not require a separate insurance with Thrifty. The policy also states that should an accident occur the car company (Thrifty in our case) will charge us on the spot regardless of fault and Holiday Cars will reimburse the charges regardless of the liable party.

Thrifty charged us 4279.67 New Zealand Dollars on 25/11/2009. We were charged in New Zealand dollars as prior to our time in Australia we worked in New Zealand had New Zealand bank accounts from which we funded our travels. We then supplied evidence of the transaction to Holiday cars along with a detailed letter of the accident.

Holiday Cars told us it would take a maximum of 4 weeks for the reimbursement. Despite numerous telephone calls and letter writing. Holiday Cars state that Thrifty should not have charged us because it was not our fault and they are waiting a response from Thrifty as to why they charged us. In addition they argue that Thrifty has charged us too much.

We have written to them reiterating that their policy states that the hire company will charge us regardless of fault and that holidaycars should reimburse us.
Holidaycars are now stating that they are awaiting a response from the third parties insurance company who should then reimburse Thrifty, and then Thrifty should reimburse us. We are yet to have any response from either rental company. Holidaycars.com now are not responding to emails left asking about the progress of the insurance claim.

We are very frustrated with this convoluted process which was made to sound so simple in the terms and conditions. Despite my arguing that holidaycars have breeched their terms of the agreement they say that there is nothing further that can be done until the 3rd parties insurers respond.

We have lost faith in the promises that holidaycars have made to us and wonder if we will ever actually be reimbursed?