Europcar Portugal Reviews 

Don't use this company...

Whatever you do... There was 5 couples/groups there all having problems. They didn't let us collect our cars because of not having a credit card in the driver's name. This was the same for all the couples. Then we all called head office and got a horrible response. The Head office started staying that they we would have to cancel the booking, not get refunds, then we missed our slot from being on the phone with them and they was going give our car away so another person.

Then someone in the car company helped us. But we would have been stuck and out off £100s of pounds. The instructions for booking are not clear enough.. couples where having to pay £250 to get their car will full insurance... What a way to make money!!! They are scamming people to get the extra money. It's was a joking seeing more and more people come in a better charged an extra £250 because they didnt have the right booking details or information....

SCAMMMM!

WATCH OUT! Very disappointed with their service. They told me my model of car was not available and they would give me a free upgrade.

I trusted him. I signed the rental form in Spanish and then got charged over twice my original rental amount for the “free” upgrade.

I tried to dispute it they were extremely unhelpful. Don't trust them to be honest or fair.

I had booked a car in May 2024 in Porto via Europcar through booking.com

Firstly, booking.com had automatically changed my first booking with the pick-up/return place. As I was booking I wanted the location to be Porto airport, then after confirmation and payment, the location was changed to Porto downtown. I immediately changed this after getting the confirmation email. According to booking.com website, to change the booking, I needed to unbook the booking and book again. Without any clear information whatsoever I will be charged for doing this. It is also absurd to be charged for changing the booking that the website changed automatically in the first place. So I cancelled the booking and made a new one, only to find out that I will not get about 60 euros back from the first booking! I have not even gotten any money back from the first booking at all.

The new booking was made about 10 minutes after the first booking was made and subsequently cancelled. With both bookings in booking.com I paid for full insurance.

At pick-up in Porto airport on May 23rd, Europcar did not accept booking.com's insurance so I had to pay Europcar's full insurance as well, and a deposit, with total of 241 euros. I never got the deposit back, and later on after I got back to Sweden, I find out that Europcar has charged my card 220 euros more! Which is ridiculous because I have paid for full insurance through Europcar (as well as booking.com). There is no damage with the car, except for the flat tire and we had to change the last minute on the way to the airport. By the way, the "help" Europcar sent us did not help us at all either with that. We changed the tire ourselves with the tools available in the car. The spare tire in the car was labelled specifically that maximum speed was 80 kph. Anyway, Europcar instructed us to drive on the motorway with that spare tire. I have already sent a complaint email about this. This whole rental had been a scam, and I am very unhappy.  Both booking.com and Europcar had been scamming renters hand in hand! Do not book with them!

We rented a car at Lisbon station in Portugal, and we were told we had a 45-minute buffer to return the car, but we were overcharged, the customer service answered that legally it was only 29 minutes, but when I looked at the bill, none of the items on the bill matched what I had paid for, this is the first time I've ever been in such a situation, and I gave my credit card, not to charge a deposit. It's to charge you more. We were charged almost 170€.
We were charged almost 170€！ They told me the Toll fee is not charged yet. So it will be more coming!
When we returned the car, we double-checked and the employee said it was fine and we wouldn't be overcharged, but we were overcharged anyway!

So I am sorry, they lied to us.

We had a Fiat 500, but I booked a Toyota AYGO-X, it’s more expensive than the Fiat 500. the explanation is they are in the same category.

By the way, we have premium insurance.

This is the worst I have ever experienced.

We rented an electric car, without any information upfront that it will only run 200km and needs charging after that for 3-4 hours! Wasn’t an option for us because we wanted to travel around, the guy on the reception looked for a petrol car and offered us an upgrade without mentioning that it will cost x amount! No transparenz or communication about the troll costs! Make sure you have detailed pictures of everything! Which we did and still they are trying to blame us for a scratch! Charged us already, no communication via email, no information about the damage case, service phone is hanging up if you are constantly asking for solution. Worst experience ever!!!

Check every inch of the car. Take photos of every document. They will do everything they can to blame you for damage even if they can't prove you did it. Staff are rude, customer service pretends they can't find documents and then suddenly they appear after months of asking.

Even tried to tell me a Fiat 500 was an upgrade. Worst car in the world

Just avoid them and go elsewhere.

And before someone from Europcar gets in touch below, I've been asking for responses to several questions for 2 months and you've just ignored all of them.

When you rent a car you trust that at the very least you get a car that has been maintained to a minimum standard. Not the case with us at Faro airport this week. Four day car rental we found that the car had wipers that were so old they couldn't clear the screen. And sadly it rained quite a bit. No water either in the washer reservoir. No working AC. And I had to pump up one of the tyres, which was obviously low. Extraordinary corporate laziness.

Lies upon lies upon lies..
Beware of this company.
At rental you are informed and reassured several times that certain items like petrol are a deposit which you’ll be refunded minus the consumption.
Then the real invoice comes in by email indicating PREPAID full tank instead of DEPOSIT!
Also the KMs reported are overwritten,ie I had a short rental for 3 days where I drove 180 km and on invoice it said 263km, ( probably how they claim to have used more petrol, I cannot be certain as a mont later I am still chasing them for the refund without any answer)

The fuel indicator was faulty and known to the staff, whom prompted us to take a picture so we would not be charged for it upon return, (it showed two lines below full despite being full).

On hindsight I should have seen the big red flag here.To date I have not heard back from Europcar and still awaiting my refund, horrible customer experience. Never again!
Do yourself a favour and use other rental companies instead.
Ref. 100712393280

Europcar Pine Cliffs, Albufeira, Portugal. Effective and friendly service. Easy and quick pick up and return (End March 2024). I would use their service again.

We collected our car at Stansted Airport on 7th March apparently the young man called Temi had only started fro the company that day. He was extremely helpful and appeared knowledgeable. Our car choice was upgraded from a Focus to a Mercedes CLA which we were very pleased with. Unfortunately there was a small error in that the car was booked for 1 day too long. This was dealt with the next day. One other problem was that we were not told that the £29 per day additional insurance did not include VAT which obviously increased the premium considerably
On the 15th March we returned our car to Stansted having a very comfortable week in the car. We were dealt with by Nigel at the returns area who inspected the car and aftewr agreeing with us that all was well we happily went on our way. we booked the car through Keddy all in all a good experience, We would use the company again.

I travel all over the world and rent cars everywhere, but I have never experienced such behavior. After paying the full amount for the car online, I wanted to pick it up the same day. I was told that they wanted another amount, the amount of which was not stated anywhere. 400 euros for compulsory insurance. They won't give me a car without it. They refused to refund my money. It's public ripping off people. NEVER RENT!!!!

TERRIBLE company! BE WARNED!! I prepaid my car rental and was asked at pick up twice if I wanted extra insurance. I declined twice! They asked me to present my card to block off the deposit. Instead they charged me an extra £314 without my knowledge! I have been fighting with them ever since! They first kept telling me I could dispute the charge after my rental completed! But for insurance how could I possibly dispute it after I have ‘used’ it for the period of cover! What would have happened if I had a car accident during that period? Would I have been able to claim on the premium insurance or not? I ended up sending written correspondence to make sure they could not just deny that there had been an issue. I was very clear I did not want premium insurance. A few days into my trip they cancelled the charge with no correspondence. Now a week later they have charged me for the insurance again! Another £214!! With no correspondence! I have again disputed the charges. This was not a simple mistake. I was lied to about what was happening and sold something without my consent. I have reported them to trading standards and continue to dispute these charges. I am waiting to hear a response from Europcar and if the matter is not resolved I will be forced to pursue legal action. I cannot dissuade anyone strongly enough from using this company! Utterly disgusting. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

Just a heads up. I received a demand for 110 euros (70 euros admin!!!) about 3 months ago for a trip I'd made to Portugal two years before from a company called EPC. These people apparently act on behalf of the Portuguese roads authorities to recover unpaid tolls They have a very bad press at the moment (just google it). No problem I thought - I still have the EC receipt showing I had purchased a toll receiver which I forwarded.Claim halted temporarily but a bit later EPC contacted me to say they had contacted EC but it was still my responsibility to have ensured tolls were paid. I paid it in the end because I don't really have time to get bogged down - which I suspect is the result they were aiming for. Be Warned. Not really what you'd expect from EC - I always paid the little bit extra to avoid this kind of nonsense but maybe not next time. I guess what I'm really annoyed about is that EC allowed this to happen?

3 weeks ago my wife booked a car for a short 2-day trip and everything was fantastic, until she paid for the service. Not only that her card was charged +100EUR more than what was in the invoice, it was charged TWICE, so in total it was 3 - 4 times more than listed in the invoice. Brought the issue back to Europcar station, the people there was very nice but couldn't give us a timeline of when or how we would be refunded. They said that's just how it works, but I couldn't believe it.

Today we got charged another ~20EUR something for tolls, which is fair, but I was surprised it took this long.

Great cars, but I can't say I trust the service. I'm still trying to get them to 1) reverse the double charge and 2) refund the extra 100EUR that was NOT mentioned anywhere in the invoice.

I was meant to pick a van and move, I was wrong…
I was meant to pick a van up from your Gloucester depot today.

I had ordered it online
I had paid for roadside assistance, I had paid for the extra £22+ per day so I did not have to pay a deposit.

I received a confirmation.

I then received numerous emails telling me to complete my booking, this was very stressful as I am trying to move myself and my two children alone to another house.

Moving is very stressful.

I called twice this week to be told both times my booking was ok, and on track with no further action all booked. The first call went so far as to say, take my bank card and driver's licence and I would be charged £5.00 for a driver check code licence, which was ridiculous as I do these daily at work, and a free service from the government available to anyone, so I printed this myself to save a further £5.00.

I have used you before, I have paid my bills and my credit score is decent, so there is no issue on what was about to happen. I have taken various driving courses at Volvo when I worked for them, so I am a pretty good driver, and I have never returned any of your vehicles with dings, scratches, or issues. So there should not be an issue there. I returned my rentals early before, so there is no issue there.. And funny enough the guy at the depot could not even find my account when I first arrived, so why would I be on DNR?..

My rental was due to start at 10am this morning, I am moving as previously stated, I am a single mum, with two children and 1 income so money is tight, I put my last bit of money into getting this van.
I walked in a little early, the guy did not greet me.
He started processing my application stating I would need to put a deposit down, I said I paid extra so I would not have to, and he asked for my driver's licence and took my check code information another customer came in. At this point, he said you are on our DNR list you are not taking a vehicle we cannot hire to you.

I was in shock and said what?

He said we can't hire to you, you are on do not rent and we can't give you a vehicle. I said what am I meant to do, I am moving today, you have my money, are you going to refund my money now so I can go get another van, he said no it takes 7-10 days, I said this does not help me, I said this is ridiculous I have used you before and not had issues with your car but this is now the second time you have messed me about at a time when I need you. I need my money. He was not going to help me.

I went out and called the number who I called during the week, they washed their hands of me and passed me to another number they said they would put me on an emergency refund, they could not tell me why there was a DNR again my name. I said that is not helping me today. I need to get my stuff out of my house and into a new home what am I meant to do? She said she could not tel me why I was on a DNR, I asked why, and when was my money coming I have to get a van today, I was still in shock I have to move I was hoping someone had this wrong and would say go back go get your van.. At this point the woman started hello can you hear me rubbish...

I don't deserve what I went through today, I paid for and worked hard to pay for a van rental today, to be treated like that was appalling, and they still have not refunded me.. AVOID THEM LIKE THE PLAGUE!!!

Mr. Paulo was very kind and helpful, and the car we rented was in top notch condition. It was altogether a very satisfying experience, so I would gladly recommend this company.

Very disappointing experience, in December I used this service for car rental in Portugal. During the car pick-up, their manager offered to use premium insurance (which was triple the cost of the car rental price by the way!). I repeatedly declined the offer, and in response manager informed me that then I needed to pay a deposit which I agreed and paid. After the car was returned to my surprise deposit was not returned in full, I had no idea why is that. After contacting their support they informed me that I was charged for premium insurance and they refused to give any further explanation! According to them, everything went according to the process! This company deceives its customers on purpose and openly acknowledges that this is their standard process! Avoid them if you can!

Great service , seamless pick and drop off
Use on regular trips

I did not see the option on Europcar’s website to rent a car near downtown Porto, so I reserved pickup and drop off at airport. Since I didn’t need the car for our first 3 days in downtown Porto I planned to travel back out to airport to pick it up. Then I discovered a Europcar office just steps from our downtown hotel. When I tried to modify the reservation Europcar website was so confusing about penalties to modify or cancel. Then I got on a Live Chat with a Europcar chat person who was so unhelpful and said: “Sorry, this is an international reservation and I don’t know about modifying it”. Huh? Isn’t Europcar an “international” company? Shouldn’t Live Chat be able to answer such a basic question? Well it’s a company that won’t ever get future business from this frequent traveler. They should be ashamed of this kind of poor service.

Very good company