Car Hire - Booking cancelled by Auriga Crown

Phil give these a try http://www.economycarhire.com/quote/index.php

You can chose the supplier, only draw back is you pay up front but at least u know its all booked!

Dan

I'm concerned about this thread as we've booked with dys in July. However, am I correct in saying that only one person has been affected ? Many of the other posts on this thread relate to problems with other companies as well. Are we overreacting ? I'm in the sticky position of not knowing whether I'll have a problem or not but taking new measures will cost me hundreds of pounds !

Mark phoned DYS yesterday and the said that our booking with Auriga Crown for Sunday was fine

Hi Kev

We like you are out in July, I have emailed DYS yesterday asking for an explanation and assurance I will have a car when I arrive but I have had no contact back from them so far. However I have used DYS on a number of occasions in the past without any problems so I am giving them reasonable chance to get back to me, I am looking at alternatives in case I don’t get a reasonable response back from them.

Phil

Kev, only found out last night after speaking to my dad and he booked with DYS and the booking was cancelled when he turned up without any knowledge, he was lucky it wasn't a busy time of year so just went to another desk and got a car.

I have 2 young kids and can't take the risk of being stranded at Alicante airport with NO car so if they cannot gaurantee my booking then I will go else where.

Dan

Kev

There are reports of this happening at both Alicante and Murcia airports (my daughter was affected at Murcia last Thursday) and DYS have confirmed in an e-mail to someone on this thread that there are around 200 cases of Auriga Crown cancelling bookings, so it certainly doesn't appear to be an isolated incident.  What DYS have also said (right back at the beginning of this thread) is that they have no way of knowing which bookings will be cancelled.  Some people appear to have received advance notification, albeit only days before their departure, but others (like my daughter) have only found out on arrival at the airport.

We are in the same situation with our booking for August - two weeks booked through DYS with car to be collected from Auriga Crown, who we have used many times before without any problems.  We are happy with the price - 270 euros for two weeks but DYS have not responded to my e-mail asking them to confirm our booking will be honoured.

We have considered the risk of Auriga Crown failing to fulfil our booking and us not being able to get anything else due to it being peak season etc, and have decided that it is not worth the risk.  We would rather pay more and know that we will have a car than run the risk of our holiday being ruined because we are without transport for two weeks. I am now going to spend the entire evening on the internet getting prices for alternative car rental!!!

It is personal choice but quite a few people seem to be getting quotes from other providers which compare favourably with DYS and Auriga Crown.  Others seem to be paying a lot more but it seems to be a question of  shopping round.  A colleague at work is visiting our apartment in July and has just cancelled his booking with Auriga and rebooked with Hertz for the same price! 

If everyone else cancels their booking with Auiriga Crown, then you shouldn't have any problem with them honouring your booking - assuming of course that they don't go out of business because everyone is avoiding them!!

Good luck!

Debbie

Just booked with Goldcar after reading this thread.  We had no problem with them last month so fingers crossed for next week.  It was awful having no car for part of our trip over there at Easter and that was my own fault for booking it too late. 

Tan

Hi there,

Don't want to make things worse but we just came back last week after short stay when we hired through Auto Europe and ended up with Auriga Crown.

The car they tried to give us was literally an absolute wreck. Every single panel had masive dents and scratches most af the trim was hanging off and most worringly when you opened the drivers door the the door "cracked" open as the the edge of the door caught the edge of the offside front wing. It must of been in some proper shunt!

When I told the fella that the car was covered in dents and scratches he just signed the contract with car badly marked. It was only when I demanded that he got off his arse and actually showed him the door damage that he reluctantly said we could change the car. This was just my wife and I this time but had they tried to palm an unsafe motor on to us when our kids were with us then I would have gone proper mad. They're a shower and anyone who's not now going to be able to use them should  be grateful even if it costs a few more euros.

Guys

Just to let you know, a member of staff from DYS has posted some comments regarding this issue on the general EOS threads on the home page.

Tanrog, how much did you pay for fuel with Goldcar? We are with them through DYS and I hear it's very expensive.

Phil

I agree about the Crown cars. When we were out at Condado about two weeks ago, we went through DYS. The car we got from Crown was a shambles to look at. It drove well, but it was a real shambles with dents and bumps all over. I did e-mail DYS, but got no reply, so  I don't think I will be using them again. I'd rather pay a little more and have a decent model to drive.

Dogbrush

Hi All,

  We are also booked with Agura Crown, but through Carjet, for July. I e-mailed them to confirm a car would be available. Here are my questions and their reply.

> Hi David,

Hi everyone,

It seems as though booking through Car Jet is the best plan.  At least David seems to look after his customers' interests.

I have been using Auraga Crown for the last three years (always booking through their own web site) and have always been happy with their cars and service levels.  HOWEVER, I think that I'll be using CarJet next time..

It will be interesting to see whether other companies start to behave in the same way.  I presume that they are all facing the same financial issues.

I hope not too many people are effected!

Ken

Hi

We booked bdiredtly with Goldcar website.  153 euro for three days.  The fuel was extra but they refund what yuo dont use when you return the car so last time we just filled it up to return it and got a refund.  Our rental is more though because we arre picking up from Allicante and returning to San Havier.

Tan

Beware, as far as I am aware refund on fuel only applies for car rental of three days or less.

Ethnea

Hi Kev

You have got nothing to lose by checking out other agents/hire car companies.  DYS does not have your payment/credit card details.

When I was out in May I booked with carjet using Goldcar.  When we landed at Alicante Airport at just gone 11.15am the queue in the hire care hall for Goldcar was out the door and halfway up the slope.  The person before me had been there half an hour already.  We were still in the queue at 12.15.

We finally went to Solmar and the price was virtually the same.  When I returned carjet emailed me:-

We have been informed by the local agent that the above car you had booked with them through Carjet was not collected. As the supplier says the car was not collected, we are wondering if there was some sort of problem we should be aware of.

Could you please let us know if in fact you did take the car, or if there was a problem during the booking process that may have led you to believe that the car was not reserved for you. Or some problem with collection that may have occurred on arrival that led to you not using the booking in the end. Or perhaps you used the booking, but with a different supplier. Or maybe you sent us a cancellation that we did not receive.

Please note that this email has not been sent for the intention of charging you any fee in relation to this, merely as an attempt for us to help improve customer services. As such, we appreciate your co-operation as your reply will help us to improve our service

I replied saying how it was and they replied:

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

Sorry to hear about your problems with collecting your car. This is exactly the kind of thing we are trying to find out.

We at Carjet place your bookings with the various suppliers on the understanding that they will be able to deal with the booking list in a competent way. It is only by means of customer feed back that we can control the activity of our suppliers.

We are aware that there are occasionally some problems with queues at Alicante, which can affect any and all suppliers without warning. It has to do with diverted flights normally.
Please note that any future bookings with Carjet, you may ask us to try to transfer you to a different supplier using the same voucher, by calling our Spanish help desk on 965 688 995.

I've booked with carjet again and again it's Goldcar.  Maybe Goldcar has got its act togther by now who knows? But it sounds like Auriga Crown is definately iffy?

Good luck

Hi

I'm off out with the missus & 3 kids on 30th June. We've booked through Hispacar and are using Auriga Crown. However, we are actually flying into Almeria this time - it will be interesting to see whether there are issues down there also - has anyone else gone through that airport recently ? I would have to say that we've used aurigacrown directly 4 or 5 times at this stage and never had any issues with the standard or condition of any of the cars so far.

I've been looking to see what the costs of a switch are - we booked a Focus-typ car for 16 days for 220 euro - current quotes for the same type of car elsewhere are north of 800! So, i definitely wont be paying for the 'certainty' - who do you go through to be certain anyway ?

Maybe I should contact Hispacar - has anyone used them before

Gary

Hi Gary

We are also on that flight out of Dublin to Almeria, I booked car through DYS for nearly 7 weeks as heading out there for the whole of the school holidays - other half joining us in August.

Have to pick up car from Goldcar - I booked in April and got economy car for 700.00 - they are now quoting 1500 euros for the same car and for the same dates

Used Goldcar before and never had any problems so hoping that is the case this time - see you on the plane

Viv

I work for DoYouSpain and would like to take this opportunity to clear up a few of the issues raised in this thread.

It is true that AurigaCrown have cancelled many bookings at very short notice. On receiving the news we immediately advised our customers and made new bookings with other suppliers to replace the cancelled reservations. In some cases the new bookings are more expensive than the original price. For these customers we will refund the difference in the price between the two rentals. We would like to offer our reassurance that DoYouSpain customers will not be left without a car or out of pocket as a result of the cancellations by AurigaCrown.

You can find further information regarding this on the following thread: Auriga Crown/Alicante- No new Fleet!

Claire Davis

DoYouSpain

Claire,

Thank you very much for taking the time and effort to reassure us all that we won't be abandoned. We are scheduled to collect cars from Auriga Crown at Murcia airport in July and August ans was seriously considering cancelling with DYS and going with an alternative. Based on your posting we are willing to wait and see what happens!

However, it doesn't answer the question of how/why people arrived at Auriga Crown desks to be told that there was no car available?

Jim and Betty

Hi Claire,

when I recently cancelled a booking with yourselves, I offered a bit of feedback to you and a suggestion. I'm wondering if you could perhaps  address it here on this forum.   I cancelled a booking because it came through as Goldcar at Murcia airport at the voucher stage. Goldcar's queues at Murcia are truly appalling, far worse than any other firm. I suggested that maybe you name the local supplier at the quote stage, saving the customer having to cancel a booking afterwards if they did not want to use that supplier.  I know we don't pay anything at that stage but it would save having to contact you to cancel the booking and stop the local supplier being messed about.

What do you think ? Is it possible ?

Thanks

Chris & Alison