Juliette
Avoid, avoid, avoid…
We had the most horrific experience with Easyjet car rental. We booked a car for 3 week’s hire for collection at Preveza airport using the easyJet car rental website linked to the main easyjet flight booking page. It cost £863 and was with Thrifty. The online booking page requested the flight number and then automatically added car pick up and drop off times. Our flight was due to land at 21.10 on 26 July - the booking form automatically added 18.40 for pick up. Similarly for the return, the flight was scheduled for 22.10 on 16 August and drop off was automatically entered as 17.40. As the times were automatically added and clearly linked to the flight numbers entered we thought they were UK times and the 2 hours time difference for Greece would be taken into account. Our outward easyJet flight was then delayed by 2 hours. Whilst sitting on the runway waiting to take off, we rang the Greek number provided on the car rental paperwork several times but it failed to connect. We then received a text saying as the flight was delayed our car rental might be affected and gave a number to call. We called it and were told there was no problem and the car would be ready for us on arrival. On arrival at 23.00 we went to the Thrify desk and were told there was no car for us because we were late. The lady at the desk was dismissive. We explained we had paid £863 and showed her the first number we had called on the paperwork to say we would be late but that it wouldn’t connect. She said she had never seen the number before and that we would have to take it up with easyJet car rental. The next morning we emailed easyJet car rental. A case number was created with Car Trawler. On the 28 July we received an email from Car Trawler who said they were sorry but we had arrived late. They gave a heap of excuses, stated there was nothing they could do and said there was no refund. Cue another email from us highlighting: 1. The online times for car collection and drop off were automatically entered onto the page linked to the flight number, indicating that EasyJet had matched the flights to pick up and drop off times. Adding to our defence, manually adding time slots only provides the option of entering times on or half past the hour. Quite simply, we couldn’t have entered 18.40 as a pick up time - only 18.30 or 19.00! 2. Both easyJet and thrifty had our flight number so both would be aware of the time the plane would land. 3. When a service is paid for in full in advance, the customer should expect the service to be provided. EasyJet took £863 and did not provide the service of a car. 4. The arguement that late arrival gave an additional cost to the car hire company to prepare the car was nonsensical (one of the reasons they gave for not refunding). The car was already clean so no extra work required. 5. EasyJet communication re delayed flights was poor with wrong phone numbers provided and miscommunication. In response to this (and several follow up emails), we finally received a reply on 4 August saying as a gesture of good will they would refund £761 - £102 short of the amount we paid. We also ended up paying £1055 at the airport on arrival for another car (from Europcar, whicg incidentally were fantastic). In short it meant we spent almost £300 more than expected and meant we started our holiday with a massive amount of stress. The reviews and apalling Trustpilot score for EasyJet car rental say it all. Had we seen them earlier we would never have booked. Why easyJet are putting their name and reputation on the line with this absolute scam is extraordinary. In short, just don’t book car rental with EasyJet!