I thought I had booked the car with Auriga Crown, since it was that website
I used to book it. I had used Auriga Crown before, had a great experience with
them, and even though I thought they had disappeared from Alicante airport, the
fact that the website was still offering cars made me believe they were still in
business, and hence I was booking a car with Auriga Crownnot with Drivalia. I
knew through an e-mail they sent me that it would be an offsite facility, and I
rang them soon after I made the booking in order to know exactly how to get to
them. Given that my return flight was earlier than their office opening times I
enquired about it, and they said it would be dead easy, by using the Public Car
Parkbut they never mentioned to me that there would be no choice but an extra
charge of 5 Euroswhich is more than what anybody would pay for the amount of
time the car was in the terminal Public Car Park!! We were transported to the
off site office by a limited seat vanand I thought we were lucky to get to
the office in the first van that arrived to the terminal stops 1-2. When it was
our turn to finalise the booking the girl was clearly well trained to tell us
how to spend more money on extras that I didn't really want. In my view she made
it sound like we had no option but to take up the Basic or the Premium Insurance
cover. The threatening message of if you don't take the cover and your
windscreen gets damaged, it would be 500 Euros for the car we had, a Peugeot
308!!!Being a Spanish tight arse and fairly brave I declined itbut she
really made me feel on edge, and think I would have some kind of damage which
would make me such a fool for not taking up the extra Insurance. My initial
booking with Auriga Crown was for 78.71 Euros, with everything included,
unlimited mileage, and the Theft waiver (TW), Third party liability protection
(TP, and Collision damage waiver (CDW) No Excess included. All I would have to
pay would be the fuel charges (Option Full-Empty). My final bill was for
191.88 Euros.whattttttttt!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!The girl said that my Peugeot 308 had a 60 litre tank. The cost of a full
tank in the nearest station to the airport terminal would have been 85.38 Euros
on that day. That obviously meant that those fuel charges referred to the cost
of the full tank (which obviously you would never return emptyso more of your
money for them), and an additional cost of 22.79 Euros forfor the sake of
it!! I couldn't help it but to try to clarify the unfair surprise, but the
arrogant I'm always right girls behind the counter tried to fool me with
stupid arguments of the kind of We're a small company and the fuel charges
cannot be the same as in a garage, since they have many more cars refuelling;
or there's a 15 Euros charge as administration and refuelling fee which
is true that appears as a small print on the billbut they never mentioned it
to me until I complained, and in the first place when I booked the car through
Auriga Crown there was never a mention for such charge!!I said to them that my
best way of complaining about them is to never use them again. Sadly, they did
not care about losing me as a customer. They were arrogant enough to dismiss me
as a one off customer, and say we have loads of customers. They also told me I
shouldn't complaint to them but to the broker/agent whom I made the booking with
never mind that it is them, Drivalia, who make those unfair charges. It is
true that other companies, such as GoldCar, have the same Ryan Air policy of
charging for a number of somehow compulsory small print extras, and in the end
what you are shown to pay initially is never anywhere near what you pay in the
final bill. It is also true that Europcar and Hertz might charge you for the
full tank but not for other unfair charges.I believe a serious company need to tell the customers how much they are
going to pay at the time the booking is made. I understand that Auriga Crown Web
is run by CarTrawler company, and it works as a broker with a number of other
car hire companies. I can only say I will never use CarTrawler or Drivalia
again, and I hope they keep having loads of customers, and that if one day
they don't and have to shut down they do not blame the global recession for
it, but rather their own arrogance and unfair policies of coming up with
unexpected charges when you are ready to enjoy your well deserved holiday, and
when the least you want after you have made sure you have done everything in
your hands for your holiday to go smoothly is to have to waste a few hours
arguing about such unfair charges with such cocky employees. A very angry ex-customer Juan Munoz read more