They can argue but I'm only interested about the facts of the insurance.
The recovery thing is interesting though.
Does anyone know how much Goldcar's own insurance is for 7 days at all?
My booking with Holiday Autos says I can cancel the insurance anyway. If it's roughly the same price then to save any aggro I'd just go with Goldcar's insurance.

A word of warning. In November we booked a car with Goldcar through doyouspain. When we picked up we were asked to leave a swipe of our credit card in case of damage. When we returned home and checked our credit card statement we discovered they had actually taken the 1400 euros when we picked up and credited us back the 1400 euros when we returned. This resulted in a loss of £110 because of the change in the euro rate. They were not supposed to do this and when challenged by doyouspain on our behalf we were told it was because they thought it was a debit card not a credit card! Eventually they refunded us around £80 of the £110 but we are still out if pocket and Doyouspain appear to have given up despite my many emails. We will never use either Goldcar or DoyouSpain again. We feel Doyouspain have a duty to refund this to us but strangely they don't seem to see it like that!

That's appalling! There is a huge thread on TA about Goldcar. I'm amazed anyone ever books with them but they do.

We've used Goldcar direct for many years now after some poor experiences with 'local' firms. Always had current model low mileage cars. We now use kiosk service to walk in collect key away in 5 mins...yes, you have to pay full insurance to get that, but no more expensive than anyone else. Join their club for points & discount deals..£27 per day OK in July, esp when considering cost of 4 transfers...no connection with them, by the way

How much is the goldcar insurance? If more than £7 per day and using hire car for longer than a week in a year, you'd be better off with this:

https://www.icarhireinsurance.com/#0

You have to leave a credit card pre-authorisation (as outlined by the person who had problems) for about €1100 with Goldcar (most other companies pre-authorise €600 - €750) but they should not charge your card only authorise the amount (it is against their trading conditions with Visa/MasterCard to take a charge so it would easily be charged back and refunded).

Yeah you have to pay and then claim back if you do have any problems that is not covered on the compulsory insurance so it depends if you think the saving is worth the hassle. For someone who rents for nearly 3 months a year, it is a big saving for us.

Make sure you use a credit card for the pre-authorisation not a debit card, though. They can and will charge the debit card and then refund.

Nick

We do exactly the same as Bircho and cover the excess charges with Icarinsurance and have done now for 3 years. The website is much improved and they have tried to cater for the issues on being insured or not. Undoubtedly this is a reaction to the frequent arguments people had on arriving at the desk. The employees have been much less pushy this year and we arrived 2 days ago and met no queues and had a very affable discussion over the insurance. I have tried others but always come back to Goldcar, the cars are nearly always low mileage and if you manage the insurance issue properly the best value for money. They are also again offering a full/full service which means you can't get stitched up on the cost of a full tank either. Hopefully the queues will be ok at the high season but you can always pay for express service if you wish. I think they have pretty much got it spot on now in balancing customer needs with their need to make a
Decent profit. Chelsea dons

Has the Goldcar pickup kiosk moved from the ground floor of the car park to first floor this year?

Smg yes it has moved to 1st floor.

Bircho, just to explain further. They did refund my credit card when challenged, it's just that in doing so, with exchange rate changes, I got back in sterling £110 less on the 1400 euros then they took. They have now given me a further £80 back but I am still around £30 out of pocket. I don't think that's fair given the fact that taking the money in the first place, rather than just a swipe, was their error. It's like any company, you only find out how good they are when you have a problem.

Did you check at POS whether it was pre-auth or charge? It states it on the machine. Also you could have charged back through you cc company and you would have got the original amount back.

The problem was goldcar believed, we've no idea why, that our credit card was a debit card! For that reason they decided to take the money rather than just a swipe. This wasn't mentioned to us when we were stood in front of them collecting the car so I think actually it may have been a slip of the hand. Anyway, that's where all the problems started. This was in November and it still isn't resolved. Really just need to give up I think. But it's a matter of principal!

Sorry, yes it was supposed just to be a pre authorised amount

After my hefty praise of Goldcar I found they did the same to me this time Kingsley , transferred the lot to my credit card. I have started the dispute process so will see how I get on !! Instead of a 10 day charge of £236.68 , I'm currently out of pocket for £1582.66 !!!!!

smg Im sorry I misread your post the other day!

The Goldcar kiosk where you drop off keys is still on the ground floor. The Cars are parked for collection on the 1st floor.

ah, so do you still collect keys from the kiosk at ground floor?