Centauro Rent a Car Reviews 

Arrived at Corfu airport taken to their depot told the car we chose not available a Nissan SUV with 25 kilometres on the clock was supplied.
Less than one mile from the depot smoke was seen coming from the engine with an acrid burning smell
Couldn't contact the depot only Athens Head office.
Eventually road assistance arrived and we were told they would take the car but we would have to find our own way to the hotel
Both in our 80's we were helped by a local mini market owner who phoned for a Taxi for us. Arrived at the hotel at 5.30 after having landed and claimed our luggage at approximately 1.00 pm
In order to write this review 1 star had to be given would have given 0 if I could
No replacement car was offered so we have had to depend on public transport for the whole week
Today we have discovered they have taken 1100 euros from our credit card no explanation
The 1100 euros were left as security which you have to do with all rental car companies
How this car rental company is allowed to trade beggars belief
The car rental companies in this country should NOT be allocating Centauro to unsuspecting customers. They should be banned
We are now out of pocket to the tune of approximately £1200.
We are both in our 80s and on pensions
If we do not get reimbursed for the monies taken we are prepared to take legal action these people should not be allowed to cheat ordinary decent people

If I want to rent a car from Milan, can I visit Slovenia, Croatia, and Austria? What are the requirements for that, such as fees or anything else?

I rented a car from Centauro Athens for my trip from April 9 to April 25, and unfortunately, my experience was very disappointing.

At pickup, I wanted to leave the required deposit on hold using my credit card instead of purchasing Centauro’s premium insurance. However, I was told that my credit cards were “not valid” or were not going through for the deposit hold. This effectively left me with no choice but to buy their premium insurance.

What made the situation even more concerning was that after I agreed to purchase the premium insurance, the same credit card that supposedly was not valid suddenly went through successfully.

After the rental, I contacted Centauro to explain my concerns, but their response was that their position remained unchanged and they could not proceed any further with my case.

Overall, the process felt unfair, pressured, and lacking in transparency. Based on my experience, I would not rent from Centauro Athens again. I strongly recommend that future customers be extremely careful, confirm deposit and credit card requirements in writing before arrival, and document everything.

Thank you for your response. I already contacted your Customer Service department and explained the situation in detail, including my concerns regarding the insurance pressure and the issue with my credit cards supposedly “not being valid” for the deposit hold.

What I found particularly concerning was that the same credit card that allegedly could not be used for the deposit worked immediately once I agreed to purchase the premium insurance.

After reviewing my case, your team informed me that your position remained unchanged and that no further action would be taken. Unfortunately, this did not resolve my concerns and is the reason I decided to share my experience publicly.

My rental in Portugal with Centauro resulted in unauthorized credit card charges and deceptive customer service.

During our trip, the rental car suffered a severe mechanical breakdown. Centauro staff confirmed it was an inherent mechanical failure, not driver negligence, and explicitly assured us we would not be liable for the tow truck or taxi costs to get a replacement vehicle.

Despite this agreement, Centauro secretly placed an unauthorized charge of over €200 on my credit card after the rental ended. They provided no invoice, no notification, and no proof of liability. A customer should not be financially penalized for the retrieval of a company's own defective equipment.

After I heavily disputed the charge, customer service confirmed in writing on May 2nd that my refund was approved and would be processed within a few days. Unfortunately, this was just a stalling tactic. To date, I still have not received my money back, and they are ignoring my emails.

I have been forced to initiate a bank chargeback and file a formal complaint with the European Consumer Centre. If you rent with Centauro, be prepared for them to charge you for their own poorly maintained vehicles and hold your money hostage even after admitting fault. Book elsewhere.

NEVER AGAIN, AVOID LIKE THE PLAGUE, YOU BEEN WARNED.

In short, their staff's disgraceful behaviour left a real sour taste on an otherwise great trip across Andalucia and it very nearly ruined the whole experience for us. Read below for details.

Made a booking at their Seville Santa Justa office. Turned up on the day to get the car, the lady at reception handed me the car keys, however didn't bother to inspect the car I was picking up at all even tho I asked that that they do.. was fairly dismissive..."we don't need to do so".

Thankfully I made sure to take plenty of pictures of the car before I set off for my trip, as you'd expect there was plenty of existing damage which is fine, but you want piece of mind of it all being recognised upfront .

I had bought insurance thru booking.com and she tried to sell me Centauro insurance, but too be fair to her she was not too aggressive with it.

Anyway, I paid the car deposit and fuel deposit charge and set off, never received the contract via email which you typically should do automatically once the trip starts.

Trip was fine, the car was ok too and it did exactly what it needed to do.

Came back the following day to drop the car off. Two guys were now managing the desk, a middle aged guy (turned out to be the chief ) and a young man (the underling).

Dropped keys, asked that car is inspected and deposit returned immediately.

The chief immediately started to try and fob me off... Telling me they were busy, I could leave, and they would inspect it later and close my contract. There was no other customer there, he was blatantly lying and it was clear they wanted to toy with me. I insisted and decided to wait as their intentions were obvious they were taking the p!ss.

20 mins later the younger guy took me down to the garage and inspected the car... Provoking me multiple times with questions about the existing damage, only for me to show him proofs of the preexisting damage that they clearly knew was there before I picked up the car.

Eventually he reluctantly accepted all was ok and pointed me back to the chief at the reception desk to close the contract and receive the deposit back.

This is where the real fun started. The "chief" all of the sudden insisted that he could not do that right there and then, but would do so in the next 20 minutes, even tho there was no other customer being managed. He insisted that I should leave, and the contract closure along with deposit return would follow via email.

So, I left, fully expecting he would not do a thing. Loitered locally and went back after 30 mins to ask that my contract is closed and deposit returned as he had not done what he had promised he would do. At this stage the "chief" came up with an amazing excuse... That the "system was down" and he had to leave also but the junior staff could take care of things. I challenged, and as he made for the door I could hear him telling the junior staff to basically not close down my contract and simply lie to me.

I again challenged and pointed out that they were just blatantly lying. I threatened to call head office, right there and then. The staff response, whilst grinning, "call the head office then". Once they realised I would carry out the threat the junior finally relented, claiming he'd process it for me, miraculously the system was no longer the issue all of the sudden. All this in a matter of 2 minutes.

He then "processed" my closure and handed me the "closure" contract, claiming my deposit could take up to a month to be returned... Another lie.

Upon reviewing the "closure" contract I realised what he had done instead, completely dishonestly, is print out the "opening" contract and tried to pass that off as the closure of the rental agreement.

Again I had to insist he was lying and being completely disingenuous. He then acknowledged his "mistake", only to tell me the system wouldn't let him process the closure... Absolutely bullsh!t

I literally had to threaten to call the police, before he processed the closure, and miraculously all of the sudden, the system was fine and my deposit was returned immediately.

Shockingly, as I was heading off and heading out, another customer came it to return his rental, and... They started to treat him exactly as they treated me. I warned him about their tactics and left.

I’ll keep this review short:
1) i payed for a class c car (ford focus or equivalent) and i got a class b car (opel corsa) without being asked if i agreed with the downgrade or beeing informed before i signed the contract. The keys were handled to me after a long waiting time. At the end they assumed they did the downgrade, apologised for it, but didn’t offer any compensation for it.
2) but the car worked
3) the waiting time was specially long because of the delayed pickup from the airport. They say they to pickups every 15 min, we waited at least 25 min
4) the customer support doesn’t work, at least through the phone numbers you find online or on google.
5) THEY ARENT 24h open and DON’T HAVE A KEY RETURN BOX. You have to return the key in person. If you have an early flight you are basically screwed. You have to return the car the day before and figure out the return to your hotel and the way to the airport on your own

Avoid this company if you expect transparent billing.

I rented a car from Centauro in Porto and was later charged 55.70 EUR for motorway tolls for a simple round trip between Porto and Fátima with a standard Class 1 vehicle. The amount appears far higher than the actual Via Verde toll cost for this route.

When I requested a detailed breakdown, Centauro only sent their own invoice showing the total amount charged. They refused to provide the actual Via Verde toll records, motorway sections, toll tariffs, or any calculation proving that the amount was correct.

Despite multiple formal complaints, the company simply repeated that their “position remains unchanged” without answering the specific questions raised.

Very disappointing customer service and a complete lack of transparency regarding additional charges. Be careful with post-rental charges and check everything very closely.

They take advantage of the traveler. They charged us twice for one car. They did not want to help us even though we had a reservation so we ended paying 3 times what we rented the car for. They would not honor our reservation. They are scam. They make you buy an insurance you don’t need. Horrible experience, 10 pm on a windy cold night. This place is not at the airport. They pick you up what makes it hard to go back to rent from another company. DONT USE THEM!!

5/8/26 In response to your reply, I spent a long time at your shop close to the airport with your attendants while my husband was freezing downstairs. There was no elevator or lights working so he also was in the dark. The attendant that helped me spoke privately with his manager ( I was at the counter waiting). He told me that was the best they could do or they would take me back to the airport. I had to pay again for the car and this time was the double of my initial reservation through Expedia. They pulled a scam on me!! It was late and we were tired

We were pushed in to purchasing additional insurance and basically told we had to if we wanted to hire the car. We even showed we had additional insurance but told it was not valid. Very poor experience

Terrible experience – dishonest upselling and rude staff

I had an absolutely awful experience with Centauro. From the moment I arrived, I was treated in a rude and disrespectful way, as if I was a problem instead of a paying customer.

The worst part is that I had already purchased full insurance through Booking.com, clearly confirmed in my reservation. Despite this, the staff aggressively pushed me to buy an additional “full insurance” directly with them for €91 extra. They made it sound like it was necessary and kept pressuring me, even though I double-checked everything. Later it became clear that this extra insurance was completely unnecessary, meaning they were basically trying to trick me into paying twice.

On top of that, when returning the car, the staff was again unfriendly and dismissive. No professionalism, no respect, and no customer service at all.

This is honestly shocking and unacceptable. The whole experience felt like a scam and left a very bad taste. I will never rent from Centauro again and I strongly recommend others to avoid them.

I strongly advise against renting from Centauro at Barcelona Airport. My experience (Booking.com ID 783714333, Confirmation ER26016468) was a classic example of predatory business practices.
​The issues:
​Deposit Scam: Upon arrival, the staff claimed they "couldn't process the deposit" on my US credit card. However, they had no trouble charging the exact same card for the rental fees and extra services. This is a blatant lie used to force customers into buying their expensive in-house insurance.
​Exorbitant Fees: I was forced to pay for full insurance that cost 30% more than the actual 6-day rental price (April 27 – May 3).
​Car Condition: The Hyundai i30 provided was in terrible condition, covered in scratches and dents all around.
​Summary: Centauro uses deceptive methods to exploit travelers. They offer a low initial price only to extort more money at the counter through fabricated technical issues with international cards.
​Do not use this company. Save yourself the trouble and book with a reputable provider.

Don’t rent cars from Centauro Alicante they are scammers upon arriving at there office I was told I could not have the car unless I took out there insurance I was not allowed to take excess on my credit card Whitch stipulates on there home page that you can DONT use them scammers

I wanted to book a car for 180€ for 3 days, and after waiting a day for some confirmations, I wanted to continue the booking: the price increased to €230 right before checkout. I contacted them, and they say they cannot do anything about the price change: complete nonsense! With this car rental, you just stand there and witness yourself getting scammed by them.

Absolutely useless company,pure scam. Avoid by all means. Hired electric car that would not last more than 100km even though after full charge should last 260km, ruined my holiday after that for returning the car 4 hours later than I meant to ( hired the car for a week, collected the car at 11:00 am and returned the car at 15:00) they decided to charge me €50 euros for late return fee, then €50 for an extra day hire then €12 because was to hot outside, basically inventing fees. The man at the counter absolutely useless, tried to explain that I don't think is fair and try to double check as is not normal he went like " this is the system,argue with system not with me" pure scam

Beware AMEX users, we booked via Discover Cars and paid for the hire and full insurance cover using AMEX. We took the physical AMEX card when collecting the car only to find that Centauro do not accept AMEX. The only way we could take the car was to pay for the insurance again using another card…….

The poor gentleman on the Barcelona desk explained that the company knows it’s an issue that their web site does not make clear but does nothing, obviously because they are making a nice bonus! And, I have checked the contract and it doesn't state AMEX is not accepted!

Please do not be fooled by thinking they are interested in customer service because the link they have shown below in their response is to simply download the invoice and not to try and resolve the issue!

Avoid this company at all costs.

My experience with Centauro has been nothing short of appalling, and I would strongly urge anyone considering hiring a vehicle from them to think very carefully before doing so.

What should have been a straightforward car hire turned into an exhausting and deeply frustrating ordeal involving unexpected charges, poor communication, and what I consider to be wholly inadequate customer service.

After returning the vehicle, oh by the way, they only open at 7am, so if you have an early flight to catch, you can park the car outside their gates, and they will charge you 40 Euros to bring it in for you.
I was also presented with an allegation of damage supported only by a series of close-up photographs that provided little meaningful context. No formal damage report was supplied, no independent repair invoice was provided, and when I requested proper evidence, I was simply told that they “do not provide damage reports or third-party invoices.” That response is unacceptable when a customer is being asked to accept financial liability.

I was also left questioning charges applied to the booking, including fees that were not clearly explained at the point of service, adding further concern about transparency.

Throughout the process, I found the company dismissive, unhelpful, and unwilling to properly address reasonable questions. As a paying customer, I expected professionalism, fairness, and openness. Instead, I was left feeling pressured, frustrated, and extremely disappointed.

In my personal experience, this has been one of the worst customer service experiences I have encountered.

My advice to others:
Read every line of the small print, photograph every inch of the vehicle on collection and return, challenge every unexplained charge, and seriously consider using another hire company altogether.

There are many car hire providers out there. Based on my experience, I would not use this company again, nor would I recommend them to anyone. I would give them ZERO stars, but it's not on the list.

Proceed with caution.

Palma Airport branch by the Duty Manager on Saturday the 25th April 2026 just after 11.00 in the morning.
The duty manager tried to scam us for more money by lying to us. His manner was very unprofessional; he was rude and very forcing – a bully. Please view the video of latter part of his performance together with the email trail to your customer service attached.

In the video you hear the stressful words spoke by my wife and myself (we are in our mid 70's) and do not want to be treated like this.

In the video your will hear my wife say:
• making me feel unwell.
• this is very unpleasant.
• this is unfair.
• I am going to faint
In the video your will hear me say:
• please be reasonable.
The situation:
Our flight Manchester to Palma was late and it took longer to get through immigration. I knew the Centauro car pickup office via a shuttle bus closes at 11.00pm. I telephoned the number provided to confirm that I would miss the 11.00pm deadline and would pick the car up the next morning.
When I arrived the duty manager informed me that my car hire was cancelled because of a "no show". Stating a 12 hour T&C. I was very close to the 12 hours from the original collection time by a matter of minutes (chronologically) which includes queueing at the office. He Cancelled my car hire and wanted me to pay over 300 euros for a new car hire contract.
The paragraph in the T&C say “Centauro rent a car will only hold the car for a maximum of 12 hours, as long as they correspond to the relevant office opening hours”. Please not they were closed between 11.00pm and 07.00am.
I do believe that I have been treated very unfairly and that I was fully complying to the T&C taking into account the period the office was closed. The person dealing with me was forcibly unyielding in his manner. I have attached a short video of the latter part of our conversation showing the duty manager lied to us.
The evidence relating to the 12 hour rule:
• This T&C statement means that if you are delayed, Centauro Rent a Car will keep your reserved vehicle for up to 12 hours past your scheduled pick-up time, but they will only do so during their active business hours.
• The 12-Hour Window: Your reservation is protected for a maximum of 12 hours from the original pick-up time. If you arrive after this window, they may consider you a "no-show" and rent the car to someone else.
• Office Opening Hours: The 12-hour "hold" does not mean the office will stay open for you. For example, if you were due at 6:00 PM and the office closes at 11:00 PM, they will only hold it until closing that night, then resume holding it when they reopen the next morning—up until the 12-hour limit is reached.

My wife and I are in our mid 70’s and therefore may be considered an easy target for being scammed.
Your duty manager lied to us. He said the computer had automatically cancelled the car hire after the chronological 12 period and he could not undo this action. This was total nonsense – a lie. This set the scene to say you cannot have your car you can only pay for an additional car - All this is very very wrong.
Please imagine 2 elderly people standing at the Centauro office counter, Palma remote office being bullied into paying over 300 euros completely unnecessarily. This is total disgrace and was an unpleasant experience which is still causing us stress.
My wife an I have had a terrible manipulated service from your duty manager at Palma collection office and we believe that we are entitled to compensation for such bullying tactics which caused such stress.

We waited an hour for the transport to pick up the car. No one answered the phone, so we took a taxi .of course, no one will reimburse that! When we arrived, it was just chaos and nothing more. It’s only a waste of nerves, really. We waited like crazy and got zero information.

Do not use this company at Santorini Airport! We booked via Booking.com & We were instructed to meet a shuttle bus outside arrivals but when we arrived there was no shuttle, we waited 15 mins and then started trying to get hold of the company, we eventually got through to the Santorini branch and they sent a shuttle down but by the time we got to the branch it was 40 mins past our booked time and we were told it was too late and we’d missed our booking. Although our car was sat there the booking had lapsed and we also couldn’t pay again to rehire the same vehicle under a new booking as the car wouldn’t be ‘released’ for 12 hours and they had no other cars available. We were left stranded now 10 mins away from the airport with no hire car and no solution offered from the company. Total scammers.