Drivalia Portugal Reviews 

Poor, we were given a car with this company from easyJet,
Although the price was competitive we were not explained that you had to leave the airport and walk 10 minutes to a shuttle bus which took us 15 minutes away from the airport to wait another time to collect the car,
My family were left Sat in the sun while I filled out paperwork and attempted to pressure into extra insurance and toll road payments
The car was clean but damaged on every panel, which worried me about the £1500 charge held on my card,
On drop off we then had to return to the compound and wait an hour for a lift back to the airport!
This was again terrible for a hungry young family, who had no where to eat or get drinks!

Car pickup and drop off took far to long for what should be a relatively easy process...

Total wait time was 3+ hours. 1hr pickup 2+hrs drop off. Luckily no issues with the car itself.

Staff deal with customers 1 at a time by order of arrival! Whether it's drop off or pickup, query or language barrier, it doesn't matter.

It's very inefficient and causes so much frustration for customers.

I'm not sure if it's staff, systems or the process but staff look visibly frustrated as well as customers.

My advice for improvement is listen to feedback from the staff and customers then invest in the improvements required. The problems will resolve themselves and the experience will be so much better.

I will not be using this service again and will opt for a smoother experience from a more well known brand.

Poor experience. Scammers. Drivalia/ Drive4Move / Sur Price (these are 3 names for same company) will be added to my shortlist of Faro car hire never to be used again.

Alarm bells rang when the agent did over the top walk around the car at start of rental.As a school teacher, I thought she was being very conscientious. Every tiniest little imperfection on the car was being noted, things I've never experienced before with car hire.
My 6th sense smelt a trap. Bamboozle the customer with a litany of small flaws so their so called damage gets 'lost in the noise' on return.
Lo and behold on return, they've charged me 320€ for most insignificant scratch, about 3 mm across. Which of course could have been there amongst myriad of 20 imperfections on low quality car.
I'm insured of course, but it's the principle of gouging customers. It's short term business practise.
Search Sur Price Faro on Trip Advisor...there are a dozen identical experiences to mine noted there this year 2024!
On Sur Price reviews, see Thomas Burrows' review below, 3 days prior to my review. Andy Cotterill, a week ago. SNAP! See the pattern! All identical complaints to mine. Their strategy of noting dozens of tiny imperfections on old car and then charging for an additional. Adding insult to injury, they are clearly not repairing the previous damage. They must be making £1000s on old cars

We had a really terrible experience with a Drivalia car rental in Portugal. The car was scratched which we totally admitted was our fault. We had rental excess insurance so it should have been relatively simple to get reimbursed by our insurance company for the damage charges. Except Drivalia refused to cooperate and provide a proper invoice for the car repair charges. In the end it took two months to finally get sufficient cooperation from Drivalia so we could get compensation from our insurance policy. They could have provided this information two months earlier, saving all of us dozens of emails and unnecessary stress.

On top of that, they charged us 7 times as much as we were quoted for a second driver. They simply added this extra charge after we returned the car because they had our credit car details and they feel they can do whatever they want with regard to additional charges.

Absolutely terrible company to deal with and I strongly advise everyone to avoid this company.

I picked up a car from their lisbon airport centre. Got the car and I was promised that If I wanted to extend my contract I just had to contact them via email.or phone and I would get the same rate for 2 days. Any further than 2 days there would be a different rate and I would also need to bring the car in first. This was told to me by the agent and supercisor on shift. So I agreed. I realized that I needed to extend by a few hours and informed them. However when I gave them the car they completely denied such a conversation and charged me 4 times the daily rate I had. I have been contesting this for over a month and they are not agreeing to anything saying that there is no chance their agent could say that. Disgraceful customer service. Would not recommend.

Our experience with this car rental company was extremely disappointing and unsafe. The company should be evaluated and held accountable for their poor service, unsafe vehicles, and unverified charges. We rented a car for only three days, and encountered numerous problems:

1. The shuttle took 45 minutes to arrive at the airport.
2. The rental process was inefficient and slow; we waited an hour to get the car.
3. The car we received was in poor condition and unsafe to drive. It broke down abruptly in a tunnel just 24 hours after we got it. A mechanic confirmed there were engine problems.
4. The next morning, we had to pay for our own cab to their office to get a replacement car, which they refused to cover.
5. The second car had a low tire pressure warning within 24 hours, despite us only driving it for 4 hours on regular roads.
6. When we returned the car, they charged us $700 for alleged damages and refueling, which we are disputing. They have yet to get back to us.
EXTREMELY DISAPPOINTING. This experience nearly ruined our time in Madeira. I strongly advise against using this company.

Because the system could not accept my Card, I didn t get the car I booked and paid for. I got no car at all.
The emp[loyee told me to start a request for refund, which will be paid back to you, he told me.
However, after I filed a request for refund, the answer was simply "No; it is your own fault...".
So even though they promised me refund, I didn t get it.
on top of that, since we had no rental car, we used other, more expensive, ways of transportation.
Bottom line: I will never go there again.
And I would not recommend this car rental company in Portugal!

They didnt give back our deposit, saying the wrong fuel was used, but never presented any proof, any technical report or how much it costed to "clean the tank". Never replied my emails about it and were very stupid when I went to the shop talk about it, didn't care at all.

Drivalia Porto: Amazing staff and really good service would definitely recommend. Got a soft top fiat 500 really good car. My Credit card was accepted and not an issue at all. Really professional.

The only place where customer without a CREDIT card can't rent a car. Made a long way to Coimbra just to hear that. And lost a non refundable SPA booking on marriage anniversary weekends. Thanks for ruining our weekends! Will never use their service again ofc :)

Great to deal with booked through car jet

they are scammers, we book and pay and after when we want to receive our car they are rejecting all types or credit cards only not to deliver the cars. I really believe sooner or later the company and its managers will be Brought to justice. I am just sad I didnt read their opinions before paying my rental.

Do not use, you risk loosing your cash

Good and almost brand new cars. Worth to use them even if they are little bit outside the airport of lisbon. Jose is a fantastic employee, nice, with real interest in helping people that doesn't know the area. Thank you

Very welcome and friendly, for sure to rent again

STAY AWAY: I made the mistake of booking a car rental in Porto through Drivalia. It was the worst rental experience of my life.

Here's why:

1. HUGE WAIT TIMES: I took 30 minutes and 3 phone calls to get the shuttle to the rental location.

2. CARS FROM CHEAPER CLASS THAN BOOKED: I booked & paid for Audi A3 (or similar). I was given a Peugeot (that is valued 10k below the booked class).

3. TIRES NOT FULL: I rode out from the rental, and once I hit 90km/h the alarm of the car went off to say that tire pressure was dangerously low. I went to the first gas station, and indeed one wheel had way too low pressure. Got my hands dirty in the dark highway station.

4. THEY TRY TO MAKE OLD SCRATCHES YOUR FAULT: I returned the car, and they started to complain about scratches on the car. Luckily, I had taken photos before driving the car out, and I could show them.

5. RUDE CUSTOMER SERVICE: Both at the rental location, the service was rude (and slow). My emails after this ridiculous experience went unanswered.

STAY AWAY.

Fantastic car hire. Smooth transaction from start to finish and very competitive. We used Drivalia rent faro and a lovely guy was there to pick us up. It is offsite but only a few minutes drive and it’s well signposted to find on the re turn of the car. No hidden extras or charges and my credit card was refunded within 2 days of getting home. Would definitely use them again. Thank you

Together with a friend I rented a car from this company in Portugal as they had a reasonable deposit held on the credit card - €850 as opposed to the €2500 that some other companies expected.
We had the car for two weeks and at the end we returned it dusty and superficially marked. The attendants at the car hire depot told us we had scratched the car and it would now need to be re-resprayed. Further to this, we got some tissue and wet wipes and cleaned all the marks off, which were all superficial and barely noticeable by the time we finished cleaning. The attendants were non-plussed by our efforts and maintained that we had damaged the car and that we would be charged.
Drivalia took €400 to cover what would be sorted by a wax and polish. They have not accounted for this 'theft' , just taken it as they pleased as they have our card details. We have contacted them immediately after noticing this charge, and they have not responded at all. No explanation for this charge, or proof that they had to pay €400 to anyone. Very unhelpful money grabbing opportunistic company with an unethical approach to customer relations. Avoid if you plan on driving past any bushes that may scuff your car a tad!

Possibly the worst company I have ever used, con artists, avoid at all costs! - rude and disrespectful from start to finish, we were charged for damage that was not caused by us and when evidence was shown I was told that it is irrelevant, when questioned about this I was threatened and I can carry on… I will never be using this company again.

I'm frequently renting cars across Europe.
In my long experience with Drivalia in Italy where it has excellent service and has a very good value for money I decided to try Drivalia at Lisbon airport but...it is the opposite. That's why in my opinion:
1. Their prices are way too high especially considering their poor quality 2. Their offices are not at the airport and one employee had to come to pick us up. The shuttle minibus arrived quite quickly and it was clean and new 3. The same employee who drove us to their offices (10 min. drive from the airport) worked as customer service at the office location, after a polite remark on the extra 35 euros he charged because it was after 8pm (we landed at 7.45pm ) became rude and inefficient. 4. He gave me wrong advice regarding the toll payment, 5. The reservoir was half empty (in Italy 99% of the time is full\full) and in the contract was marked 5|8, only when I took a picture he agreed with me that the reservoir was'nt 5\8 . 6. Upon returning the car after one employee checked the level of the reservoir, well above half empty, and the car in general and after saying everything was ok (I also had the full cover) she told me to go to the office. At the office unfortunately the same employee with whom I had dealt with when picking up the car was in charge. After 5 minutes waiting, while a couple was discussing on the phone with their agency on the prices of drivalia, I questioned the employee, that he was doing absolutely nothing, if he could tell me what I had the do at the office knowing that his colleague said everything was ok with the car he told me "you have to wait" but after few moments I told him that I had a plane to catch and I had repeated the same question he said "you don't have to do nothing".
To summarize at the moment at Drivalia Lisbon airport they are Expensive, uncomfortable, inefficient and very rude.

Very disappointed, I agreed and paid to collect the car at 0:00 and arrived on time, but they charged me €35.0 saying that it would be a fee to collect after hours, but if they want to make this charge, it must be by agreement As soon as I made the payment and not when I collected the car without prior notice, I was very disappointed. I would give less than 1 star if I could
Date of experience: 23 September 2023