Hi everyone, my husband and I are travelling to Portugal for the first time in June and we are very worried about hiring a car at Faro Airport! The reviews are scathing of the well known and smaller car rental firms.
Can anyone recommend a reliable car hire company at either Faro or Faro Airport? We will be coming in by bus from Sévilla. We will be hiring the car for 5 days returning it to Lisbon Airport.
Thanking you all in anticipation, Virginia
Posted by
Tunbridge Wells
6113 posts
I have hired cars for all of my 17 trips to Portugal over the years and have never been scammed. Last year and the year before, we used Drive on Holidays, who are based off the airport, 5 minutes away (they have a free shuttle bus) and this year, Keddy were cheaper (actually Europcar), who are on the airport. I would use both again. Europcar was slightly easier as they were on airport, although at first, we were looking for Keddy, not Europcar, but that was our fault!
Both had clean, well maintained cars - Europcar’s Renault Twingo was less than a month old when we took it.
We have never had an issue on any trip (Portugal or anywhere else in Europe) and for business or leisure with any hire company trying to charge for damages or scratches or any other kind of scam that we didn’t cause. Between us, we must have hired over 100 times. Take photos of the car when picking it up and note any issues on the form before you take the keys.
I always return the car from where it was hired, so Drive on Holidays May or may not have a Lisbon branch.
Posted by
OP
2 posts
Thanks Jennifer, that is so reassuring to hear! We automatically chose Europcar as we had such a good experience with them last time. Then the recent google reviews really put the wind up us. We always take photos and have scratches etc noted on the paperwork as well. Thank you for taking the time to reply to us, cheers Virginia