Europcar in London Stansted Airport, Stansted

Do not be sucked in by a price of Europcar 'too good to be true'. Europcar policy is to rent out cheap and later charge your credit card for phantom services. Please read on.

In January 2014 Momondo provided the most convenient rent-a-car at Stansted and we booked via CarTrawler for 2 days a car with Europcar. CarTrawler offered for € 6.90 per day an insurance to cover the GBP 1,000 own risk Europcar applies. Collecting the car at Europcar Stansted we were offered the same extra insurance for GBP 30 per day. We felt for a rent of less than 40 hours we could do without the extra cover. What a mistake!

We drove the car carefully, no damage whatsoever and returned the car at 23:45 PM at Stansted. Notwithstanding Europcar claim to be open till 01:00 AM, the Europcar desk was closed. We had to leave the car keys at the key return box. We didn’t realise that now we were a Europcar hostage. A day late our credit card was charged for an extra GBP 92.

We should be happy we were not ripped off for a larger amount.

Endless calls with the service dept finally revealed that Europcar proclaims we had returned the car with a scratch. A true lie that brings Europcar money they miss by renting out cheap and not selling you an insurance that costs more than the rental price.

Europcar is a rent-a-car company definitely to be avoided.