Europecar Reviews 51

We recently hired a car from Europecar, whilst in Spain for a weeks holiday, and it's an experience I would not care to repeat.
As we were going to cover a few miles on holiday, I spent a little time finding exactly the car I wanted to use for the week, and settled on a Skoda Kamiq.
We landed at Malaga airport, and went straight to the Europecar desk.
Firstly it took about 15 minutes for us to get seen even though we were the only ones in the queue, as every time a desk became free the sales assistant seemed to go for lunch.
Finally we were seen, and we gave them our details from the DoYouSpain booking.
I was asked what type of driving I was going to do in the car, I said a few miles and visiting friends and I was immediately offered an Audi A3 instead of the car I had booked. I initially thought OK, maybe all of the Skoda's were out. I declined the offer stating that I wanted what I had booked. So she looked again, and I was offered a BMW 1 series.
Again I declined, stating I wanted what I had ordered, and the sales assistant said that I should have a nice car as it was part of my holiday, again I stated that I wanted the Skoda, and that I had nice carts at home and I wanted what I had booked.
Foe the third time I was offered another premium brand, a Mercedes. At this point it felt like the scene from Trains, planes and automobiles, where Steve Martin is trying to hire a car in the airport, but I didn't swear, but quite forcefully stated that I wanted what I had booked.
She finally accepted this request, and offered me the optional insurance, to waive the £3500 excess for damage!
I agreed to this but didn't realise that this was per day, and not for the week, which was not explained at the time. This additional cost almost doubled the cost of the car for the week.
The sales assistants are obviously incentivised to upsell the car originally hired.
She then said that because we had opted for the insurance we did not need to note any existing damage to the vehicle, which I thought was a little odd, but more on that later.
Finally we had the car we wanted booked or so we thought, and we were directed to level -2 to collect the car.
As we walked over to get the car, we noticed that collections were on level -1 and not -2, which was very confusing, but we followed the signage and found the collection area on -1.
We were given the keys and directed to the space where the car was, only to find that it was a small VW SUV, not the Skoda I thought we were finally going to get.
At this point I was so frustrated with the whole experience that we just put our bags in the car and went to drive off. However the car stank of cigarette smoke and had obviously not been prepared for rental.
I went straight to the collections desk again, and demanded another vehicle.
I was given an equivalent Seat, which was fine, and it was now that I understood the no need to catalogue existing damage remark.
There was a deep gouge down the passenger side of the car along with many and I mean many other scrapes, it would have taken ages to identify them all.
So we finally drove off and the car was fine all week over around 600 miles of mainly motorway driving, but the initial collection of the car was an absolutely awful experience, and one that I would urge everyone not to experience.

Unacceptable service.
Forced to buy insurance, charged €400 unexpectedly, and still no deposit refund. Zero transparency. Stay away.

Having looked at the comments on here regarding Europecar I’m surprised they are still trading, my insurance had these cowboys arrange a hire car, they rang with a vehicle which was not what the insurance had requested so I rejected it, they rang a couple of time telling me they where still trying to source a car, after 2 weeks I rang my insurance to see that the delay was, they said Europecar had cancelled the booking without telling me, I’ve told my insurance I’m not renewing with them if they continue using this absolutely useless company

AVOID AT ALL COSTS:

Terrible service – we ordered a Mercedes but they insisted on two credit cards (nothing of this in their Ts&Cs obviously). We ended up with an Opel... at the same price!

Oh, and worst still: 3 months later no deposit back.

Terrible scammers. We rented a car "Ford Focus or similar" through DoYouSpain online booking company, for 20 days with Platinum Insurance added, €528 all together, pre -paid online fully to DoYouSpain. In the insurance policy it was noted that upon pick up the car, we'll need to secure €800 deposit in case any damages. (Already interesting because we bought full insurance) On September 4th 2025, we picked up the car, although a Citroen latest model double fuel...and we were charged the 800 euros deposit. The EUROPE CAR office in question is at Castellon Train Station Europe Car Office.The platinum Insurance notes that it's NOT A CHARGE on the card, ONLY blocking the amount a d it will be UNBLOCKED when we returned the car in good condition. On September 24th we returned the car immaculate condition. AND, WE ARE STILL WAITING FOR THE 800 EUROS DEPOSIT to be returned!!! Today is October 13th! We have written several emails, complains to both Europe Car and DoYouSpain Customer Services, we made several phone calls to the same customer service offices, with all kind of different stories being told, each different from the other, NOBODY issued yet the 800 euros deposit refund, which is actually to be UNBLOCKED ONLY!! They stole the deposit and they think they can get away with this!! Definitely file charges at the police station this time. Please be aware of Europe Car indecent activities and they're out there to take deposits illegally!! OUTRAGEOUS criminal activity!!!!

Recent experience of Europcar Heathrow Airport August 2025 for Australians.

I’m writing this for the first time not because I feel bad but I feel embarrassed. I wasn’t aware of the full-on high pressure upsell of their product.
Please, please be aware that this company’s intent is not what you experience, but actions solely for profit making and ballooning.
Be sure not to engage with them unless the final charge rate has been secured. Hidden charges of VAT ( UK) are not disclosed at the counter!

Before you travel, confirm in your native country that all insurances are truthfully covered and that ‘credit card’ ‘excess’ is covered.
Be aware we were challenged at the counter with horrific rates if we had an accident for not choosing their excess product, even though we had said that we had covered the excess sold in our native hire country.
Europcar hires products that rely on car manufacturers reputations for safety and efficiency, however you - the Customer -drive the product with fear of accident which Europcar feeds on.
Travel safe good luck shop around!

I booked a car 2 days before the date and wanted to change the time 10 minus after the booking. They said that the penalty is 50 Euros, but they took 400 euros instead. On top of that they said if i make another reservation they would correct the mistake and refund 400 euros.
After 2 reservations at the same time and date they told they still could not do the refund because this information in their system is hidden.

The car was immaculate and the pick up was relatively pain free. HOWEVER and it's a big however, when picking up the car from Lancing in Sussex, I was informed that as a foreign driver there would be an excess of 100,000 pounds on the car. Yes! You've read that properly. This was around 80,000 pounds more than the car was worth. Despite my protests I got no leeway and was forced to pay A$250 to protect myself against this excess. This despite travel insurance that had me covered already, but for a reasonable excess. No logical explanation was provided and despite some research back in Australia I cant establish any substantive reason for this extraordinary excess. Be warned.

Awesome amazing and astounding customer relations skills from Rueben at the Chelmsford Montrose road branch pushed me to express my immense appreciation for such a service.

He is literally endowed with all a customer needs, at a collection point.

Full of smiles, proactive problems solving and an excellent communicator.
With his A- team red tapes are minimised. Can’t wait to rely on them anytime soon.

I am absolutely furious with the appalling service I received from Europe Car. I had an out-of-hours booking that I paid for, and they completely failed to turn up. To add insult to injury, they charged me a ludicrous £10 just to speak to customer service (two calls at £5 per call), and the representatives are nothing but rude, arrogant, and disrespectful.

Their complete lack of care left me significantly out of pocket, with around £50 wasted on taxi fares because they couldn't fulfil their commitment and are in breach of contract. I missed my vital appointment in Heathrow because of this which has significant repercussions for my business. Oh and to add insult to injury going to have to wait 4 working days for my refund even though they had my money at booking and had no one at the Gloucester branch to give me a car.

It's disgraceful that such a company is allowed to operate. Avoid at all costs if you value your time and money.

I had a terrible experience at Bristol airport. The rep didn't even walk me to my. car, let alone show me how to use the contrils-Absolutely shocking experience!

I had an extremely disappointing experience with Europcar in Spain. Upon arrival at my destination, the company came up with excuses for not delivering the car I had reserved. It seems legally permissible due to all the fine print, but it's still very frustrating. I was unable to collect the car despite making an advance payment, and none of the amount I paid was refunded. I highly recommend choosing a larger, more reputable company to avoid such issues.

During trip in New Saeland I drove 7 km per hour too fast. The Fine of Police costs: 30 NZ dollar = 14 euro.
For deliverage of my adress to Police ( administration costs) Europecar asks 57 NZ Dollar = 26 euro.
So costs administration is 2 times higher than the original fine.

These guys ignore communications and make everything harder than it ought to be. Had a stressful time in Amsterdam with one of their cars which had a tyre not fit for purpose causing us to waste a day awaiting recovery.

We recently traveled in Italy and rented a car from here, despite the trepidus reviews our experience was fine, though the car wasn't the cleanest.

After hiring a car I took it back after 28 days as thats the maximum hire period thats given. I was told if i needed to close that account and open a new one for the remaining 3 days I needed. I closed the first one and was tild my £200 deposit would be refunded back onto my card,but not for 7-10 working days. I then had to pay ANOTHER deposit of £200 as it was a new booking. The first thing that went wrong was my driving licence was entered incorrectly. So i was declined. The poor lady did her best to rectify this, but apparently they had a new system that didn't allow her to retry. She advised as long as I had the car back by the Saturday lunch time,she'd be able to allow that. Ok, so i paid my deposit and a further £125 for the 3 days. I took it back and that was that. Until i started checking for my deposit to be refunded. I phoned to enquire but was told, they would launch an enquiry as to where my money had gone. Again I was told the 2nd deposit wasn't due yet,but assurances were made that it would be there. Well that was a week ago and im STILL waiting. It's £400 and still nothing! It's maybe not a lot of money to some but its a lot to me. Im so fed up of companies like this that take advantage and always fall back on the "oh I'll launch an investigation "! I am not interested in a flippin investigation, i just want my money back!

Very bad experience unfortunately. We were debating if we are to pay less to an unknown car rental company or to pay for premium to have a hassle free holiday. We decided to pay more, and be relaxed... well universe said no. Straight at the car collection we got the first slap. I booked an Octavia Combi or similar, was givenna Kia Ceed. Not even close to Octavia's boot space, and being on a family holiday with 2 kids mean boot space is a must. The clerk wanted to sell an upgrade to me which I refused and he got very agitated, throwing documents at me. (Literally) We got a nice car, all seemed good at the end, no extra fee but the guy just handed the keys to me saying nothing. I thought well nice customerservice but anyway I'm not here to make friends. Car stayed at the hotels parking for a week, side mirrors folded. When we got back to the airport a lady showed up to check the car, and after looking at her handheld device, (not looking at the car) she went straight to the right side, side mirror and said here is a damage. I was like that cannot be for multiple reasons done by us, but she said we go to the office now. Despite having paid premium, full insurance, casco, they made me pay for an old damage without me having any way prooving them wrong. This was our first time renting a car, but definitely the last. Not sure what cheaper car rental companies do, but if this is the premium i don't even want to imagine. Arrogant staff, lies and no chance of winning an argument against them. So if you ever thought to ruin the end of an otherwise great family holiday, go and rent a car.

God, where to begin. Expect to show up and have them give your car away. Upgrade was 250% the agreed, prepaid price. Cancerous organisation with people who actively break the law. The only reasonable explanation is that they are bribing officials to look the other way.

Europecar Milan branch. Managed to find a mark on the car that they needed a torch to see and then charged nearly 300 euros to have it repaired.
Furthermore, the repair was not put onto the invoice so it looks as though the depot is charging customers to boost their revenues.
The damage was most certainly not done during the rental phase as it was driven straight from Europecar to a secure off road car park at work and then driven straight back again.
I am not sure about the company but the depot at Milan airport appear extremely dodgy.
We work for a large international company and this has been flagged with them. The likelihood of using them again has decreased by a day and night comparison.
CAUTION ADVISED.

We booked and fully prepaid our car through Easyjet Car Rental.

Had to modify our car hire booking due to a delayed flight arrival and ended up using Europcar who I have never used before. We gave them our prepaid voucher when we arrived and signed off the paperwork presented to us which we were told was to confirm that we did not want to take their insurance as we already had our own car hire excess insurance.

After returning home we noticed additional costs had been charged to our credit card.

Turns out Europcar gave us an upgraded car WITHOUT NOTIFYING US and told us we were signing for insurance when we signed the contract that was written in Spanish. They charged us over £200 in addition to the prepayment we had made to Easyjet Car Rental.

This is a scam. Money was not taken from our credit card until AFTER we left Spain so we had no way of knowing.

No one told us the car we were given was different to what we had requested and prepaid for. The contract was presented in Spanish and we were told it was just to agree to deductions for our insurance. They lied to us. This is fraud.

Easyjet Car Rental have been useless in calling out this fraud.

I just want to warn others to be careful as this scam is terrible.