We just returned from a long weekend in Bellagio Italy.  It was a beautiful location and we had a great time but I have returned to the UK with a bit of bad taste and it was nothing to do with the Italian food… it was a result of a hire car excess …. 2800 Euro excess!

Before we left we booked an Avis hire car through Holiday Autos to be collected at Malpensa airport Milan.  We took advantage of the Collision Waiver, Theft Waiver and Third Party Protection…… now you would have thought we had it all sewn up…  Sadly not the case.  Now I am sure the excess was in the small print but, with all the above protection and waivers I didn’t pick up. I really thought I had the full set.

The end result was we paid an extra 211.98 Euros for Excess reduction and 9.15 Euros for Windscreen protection.  Yes we could have opted out and stood the 2800 Euro excess had we had a ding….. But we decided better safe than sorry.  Looking at the vehicle we ended up with there had been a couple of dings that some poor soul had probably paid the excess on!

Did it ruin the trip?… No of course not…  Did it bankrupt us… again thankfully not, but what it did result in is me never booking through Holiday Autos again..next time I will go direct to the hire company.