Centauro Rent a Car Reviews 16,693

Madeira: upon arrival there was a lot of scare-mongering to try and sell their in-house insurance (which costs as much as a week's hire). They told us our booking.com cover was useless and the only way be covered was to buy theirs. They make you pay a massive deposit as well as fuel totalling over £1500. Due to the scaremongering, I was afraid they were also scammers, and I was continuously afraid they wouldn't refund the deposit (and the contract is in Portuguese). They did refund it, as it happens, but we spent our entire holiday stressed at the prospect of being scammed

I see Centauro have responded below to ask me to email them. I already have. Twice. Nothing has happened. I STILL haven't received any refund and looking around, there are other reviews (for example on google) reporting exactly the same in relation to snow chains. Luckily I booked through a good broker and they are pursuing the car hire company on my behalf. Centauro's policy must be "do nothing until the customer gives up and goes away" but 65 eur isn't a minor inconvenience to me, so it will be a Requerimiento de Pago sent via Burofax next. Also, when I tried to edit my review elsewhere (google) to add some additional factual, completely non-defamatory information, Centauro flagged it and tried to get it taken down. Sharp practices.

Cannot for the life of me understand why Which? rates them so highly.

Hired a car from Milan Malpensa from these guys during the winter when either snow chains, snow socks, or all-season tyres are a legal requirement. None of these were supplied despite me emailing twice before the rental to absolutely make sure they would be, because we were going somewhere with snow.

I was left trying to source AND PAY FOR my own snow chains, at the end of March when everywhere's running out, for a car with unusual-sized tyres at 830pm at night. Had to stop at 4 filling stations, as a single parent after a really long journey.

They promised to refund them, because they were 65 euro, and guess what?? Nothing has touched my account since. Despite repeated emails. I will never rent from them ever again.

Plus, service was very slow, the supplied vehicle was absolutely cream crackered and stank, and they refused to give me any kind of upgrade to a car that might actually have snow chains (unless of course I paid a whopping fee).

Rubbish.

Their car broke down on the highway and when we contacted them for assistance they advised us to accept a tow from a mechanic that had (thankfully) already stopped to assist us.
Upon arrival at the shop they then told us we would be responsible for all the towing charges!

Great experience, we had a mark on our bumper which we and centauro didn't pick up on when we picked up our hire car but on return they never charged us , great understanding company , would definitely use again A++++++

AVOID DO NOT USE THEY HAVE HIDDEN FUEL COST AFTER YOU HAVE BOOKED Just booked with Malaga Centuro as they have an offer on which makes car hire look cheaper than the likes of Malagacar.com. However when you go to book after they have taken your payment they then slap £85 on for a fuel charge. Disgusting and I will never use Centuro and will stick to good honest guys at Malagacar.com

They will deduct money without your consent 2 years after your rental. 735 eur was deducted from my account without my consent.

In Malaga, we came back with 60 % fuel in tank.. Correct charging, no extrasss ! Great service and pricing overal!

Had a full to full rental. However the car was not full. They said no problem” just return with same level.
Stupid to trust them since they charged me fuel from start-level to full tank.
Complaint did not change their mindset - and did talk to their customer service with no support.
Fraud company.

Booked a car for a holiday in Italy, but after reading all the negative reviews I emailed them to make sure which documents they need for the rental.

Turned out they don’t accept credit card with initials + full surname, only with full names. Well, in NL that’s not possible and therefore I had to cancel my booking because they would not accept my credit card, although my initials correspondent clearly to the names in my passport and driving license. Glad I double checked!

But I have rented cars in many countries and never experiences something like this…

I was charged an additional fuel fee even though I filled the car up twice before returning it. The vehicle appeared to have a software issue: even after the gas station confirmed the tank was full, the car still did not show the last segment of the fuel gauge as filled. Because of this, I paid twice at the Petroprix station, spending an extra 10 euros just to make sure the tank was full.
When I returned the car, I explained the situation to the employee and showed her both fuel receipts. She told me that everything would be fine and that this sometimes happens. However, she then only pointed me to a place to sign without clearly showing me what I was signing. Later, I received a document by email showing that money had been deducted anyway. I find this misleading and very disappointing.
The car itself was acceptable, but not what I had booked. I reserved a comfort category car and was promised a Volkswagen T-Roc in the confirmation email, but instead I received a Chinese MG. The car was new, clean, and had leather seats, so it looked fine at first. However, the sound insulation was poor, and the electronic driving assistance was frustrating and, at times, concerning.
For example, the car would sharply pull the steering wheel in the opposite direction when approaching a lane marking. On mountain roads, this felt not just annoying but potentially unsafe. This feature had to be turned off manually every single time before driving.
Instead of properly responding to my complaint or apologizing, I kept receiving promotional emails inviting me to rent from them again.

Don’t book with these guys if you have somewhere to be:
- shuttle bus was 45mins, not 10-15
- only 2 people on site to handle collections and drop-offs
- smart key collection didn’t work
- I’m considering booking a taxi to get back to the airport

The only reason I got the shuttle was because I tried to get a cab, they rang a special number (not the one on the booking) and spoke to someone then. I rang the number on my booking whilst in the reception, no phones rang.

My girlfriend booked a car with Centauro at Barcelona Airport for pickup by 23:00. We provided our flight number, the plane landed early, and we were among the first to get our baggage. We reached the shuttle bus area around 23:00, only to discover the last shuttle had left at 22:45.
Their office is supposed to be open until 23:00, yet they happily took our money for a booking they clearly couldn’t fulfill. We called customer service once – they knew everything but offered zero help, zero solution, zero apology. We were left stranded at the airport like idiots after a long journey.
How stupid do you have to be to accept 23:00 bookings when your last shuttle leaves at 22:45 and you have no backup plan? This isn’t bad service – this is straight-up incompetence and customer disrespect.
Centauro promises cheap prices but delivers nothing but frustration and stress. Useless company from start to finish.
Stay far away. Pay a bit more for a proper company like Sixt or Hertz that actually knows what they’re doing.
1 star (being extremely generous).

After reading other reviews this seems like a systematic scheme when renting through a third party in my case booking.com they allow for denying their gap insurance if you leave a $1500 deposit on your card but when you go to process the charge it doesn’t go through. I tried 4 different credit cards and none worked. This is all done in my view to get you to add on the unneeded insurance. It is a scam and should be reported to authorities.

They (Palma airport location)were unable to process payment for deposit required for insurance deductible- tried 3 valid credit cards and debit cards. Called my credit card company direct and they said nothing was received. I believe it is fairly common as while I was there two other customers had the same experience. Very frustrating experience. Worst car rental experience ever. The counter lady was not concerned and said it was my problem,

Had to catch a ride back to the Palma, Mallorca airport and hire a Uber for transport to my hotel.

So I left without a rental and they refused to reimburse me for the rental car expense. Avoided at all costs.

Avoid at all cost. Aweful company, rude and ignorant staff. Tried to sell me extra insurance at all cost. Did not understand that passport and drivers licence could not be from same country! (Both EU). On return tried to chrge me for a scratch that they deliberately had not put on their form,assuring me that it would not be a problem. Luckily i had photos. Never again!

I had booked and prepaid a car rental, including an external AXA premium insurance policy. Upon arrival at the Malaga counter, I was strongly pressured to purchase their additional insurance for €140, which I refused multiple times.

At that point, an absurd situation began: after checking my documents, I was told that my Revolut credit card “was not acceptable” and that the only way to be allowed to pick up the car was to take their insurance — naturally, however, to pay the €140 insurance fee, the Revolut card was perfectly fine.

In other words: pay, or no car, despite the fact that the rental had already been fully paid. This is not a simple service issue: it was pure extortion.

The same Revolut card was then accepted without any issue to pay €85 as a “deposit” for the fuel tank, making the situation even more contradictory.

What is most serious is that these conditions were not made clear at the time of booking and are only introduced at the counter, putting the customer under pressure when there are no practical alternatives left.

The whole situation took place with a staff member (an older woman with short blonde hair and glasses) who maintained a rigid attitude and showed no willingness to find a solution, repeatedly stating that “there were no alternatives”.

I do not know whether this was the improper behaviour of a single employee or a systematic company practice to make money, but in either case it is extremely serious.

Unfair behaviour, extortion, total lack of transparency, and a contradictory and unprofessional attitude towards the customer.

Avoid at all costs ! They scam you with the fuel asking you to bring it back 65% full. Almost Impossible !
Then they scam you with the insurance. Their price seems competitive until you get thereto collect the car and they charge you another £250 for insurance.
Avoid !

Never go with this company . Poor customer service and don’t reply for emails , need to contact my bank for final refund payment.

I have rented a car at Centauro for 4wks early March 2026 at the Heraklion/Crete location. I have rented cars at that location twice before, mostly because they have new and well maintained cars - and I really liked the staff the 2nd time I rented. The 1st time was not as pleasant at the pick up, because I had a pushy agent being aggressive about selling extra car insurance. But there were more customers waiting in line and therefore she let it go.
Now this time we unfortunately had this particular person again, there was nobody else in the office. And this time she tried again aggressively to push car insurance on me, when I kept declining it, she said that the security deposit for the rental was €1100. Which was no big deal as I am used to getting charged a security deposit when declining insurance. But what happened next was quite remarkable and has never happened to me before. All of a sudden my Credit Card was instantly denied at all the terminals, she claimed that there was something wrong with the chip of my card. Never mind that I had just paid with the same card the rental car fee and use this card all the time without any problems. I did then call Chase, the Credit Card Bank to ensure that there was nothing wrong with my card. They were surprised because there was not even an attempt for a charge on their end and assured me that there should absolutely be no problem with the charge on my end. I was also not allowed to use a different card. To make a long story short: This woman told me that I could have the car if I paid €300 for insurance, otherwise I could not have the car since a security deposit could not be processed as there was a problem with my card. Since it was late and we needed the car to get to our place, I decided to bite the bullet and pay the €300...and -surprise- my card worked like a charm again for this payment. My card also worked perfectly fine when picking up another car and paying the security deposit just recently. I have been disputing this charge now through my credit card company as it was clearly not an issue of my credit card but wanting to force a considerable charge on me that I did not need...by whatever shady means. I am truly sorry that this happened as I also had really great experinces at this location before, but definitely not with this person.

Always had excellent experience with Centauro, both in Porto and Faro. ( I always pay to remove the excess so never any funny business with damage. )

Centauro charge me unjustified cost after the car return .They have dishonest business practice . I will not recommend this company.