No, they haven’t gone into the car hire business. But they have become a broker and are now offering Ryanair car hire to all their flight customers.
Sadly, though, they’ve partnered with all the worst companies that operate on the island, and that’s caused problems for many readers.
We thought we’d have a look at them, so we decided to look at a hire for a small car for a week in August.
After putting our dates in, we got this:
Pretty impressive. The dates we’d gone for are for the highest season, and that’s a lot cheaper than our own car hire offer, which is €119. So we started to dig, to find out what is included.
There’s a little button which says “Important information.” The kind of button nobody ever clicks. So we did, and found out that:
- A credit card in the driver’s name is required.
- There is a €300 deposit required on the credit card.
- There is an insurance excess of €870.
- The breakdown cover is “basic” but you can purchase better cover when you collect the car – we’ve no idea what basic means, either.
Hidden in this small section, which you can only access by clicking the button, is this:
What?!
€24.68 A DAY to remove the excess? So suddenly the €83 car hire becomes a €257 car hire! (Unless you want to run the risk of having to pay €870 if some idiot drives into you.)
There is no other phrase for it – that is daylight robbery. It’s also why the agents on the hire desks push you very hard when you collect your vehicle to take it up.
And it gets worse:
- Additional driver? €72.12 for the week
- Child seat or booster cushion? €63.48 for the week EACH
If you’re a family of four, and need a child seat and a booster cushion, and both of you want to drive, you’re looking at a total bill of €456 for a week’s hire. Like we said, daylight robbery.
Now, we have a vested interest, because we offer car hire here in Lanzarote. But we’re heartily sick of people coming to the island, having an awful start to their holiday when they realise they need to fork out loads more money than they’d planned for their car hire.
So, here’s an offer for you. Even if you don’t want to deal with us, we still want you to have a decent experience of the island, so we’ll provide you with a list of the car hire companies in Lanzarote that don’t employ these despicable practices, and you can safely book with them. Just use our contact form, and we’ll email you the list straight back, no strings attached.
For our part, if you would like a price from us, we’ll promise you this:
Our initial price may be higher than the one you see on the Ryanair car hire website or app, BUT:
- There will be no excess on the insurance
- There will be no deposit
- We won’t ask you for a credit card – debit card is fine
- We won’t charge you for a second driver – it’s free
- We won’t charge you for child seats or booster cushions – they’re free
- We don’t have tiers for breakdown cover – if you do break down, we’ll bring you a replacement car
In short, when we quote a price, that’s what you’ll pay. Not a penny more.
If you want a price from us go here. Car Hire Lanzarote.
And by the way, you don’t need to take our word for this, check out these Ryanair car hire reviews on Trust Pilot.
