Centauro Reviews 188

Went to Porto on 8 June 2021 and picked car up from near airport. After some initial difficulty knowing where to get the bus at the airport, we found the bus. When we arrived the receptionist was polite but asked about 10 times if we wanted additional excess insurance. Both my partner and I said no as I had just purchased an annual excess insurance policy from another company (which we also told her) as we will be going to Portugal regularly. When charged more money than expected I asked the receptionist and she said all of the money would be returned except for any road toll charges. When we returned the car, I asked the gentleman checking it about the amount I had been charged as I had wondered why a bigger deposit had not been taken and he took me to another receptionist who confirmed all of the money would be returned. A few weeks later I check my bank account and see that £110 has not been returned. After not getting a reply for a week, I sent another ticket/email and got a snippy reply saying I had purchased the excess insurance from Centauro and that my money would not be returned. I replied to them saying that both my partner and I had refused the insurance about 10 times and had bought a different annual excess policy from another company prior to leaving the UK but they have not bothered to respond. I see that other people have had the same problem with being charged for excess insurance despite refusing it so be wary with this company.

Hired from them in Porto. To my surprise they where great! Cheap, no nonsense, and all the excess back on my card afterwards.

I did no expect that :)

Shockley bad. First they left us at the airport when we arrived for two hours with no call to explain what was happening. When we got to their office finally they blamed Wisecars for not sending them the flight details and told us to book direct with them in the future as wisecars were unreliable. Then at the end of our holiday we wanted to drop the car back one hour late to say goodbye to a family member. The car was due back at 10.00am. They told us that Wisecars would charge us a £50 penalty and a days car hire. When we asked if they could extend the car hire they sent us an email to create an account. Then to sign in to get a price for the extra hour. We did so and they wanted €276 for the extra hour. When I explained we had only paid €210 for the whole week the customer service lady said “I suggest you bring the car back on time then” and that was the extent of their help. We did return the car on time and I requested details of their complaints procedure and filled out a complaint form. I would never use this company or any company that uses them ever again. They did not care at all and when I tried to talk to the male customer service representative he ignored me completely and would only talk to my husband. The worst car hire experience I have ever had.

Absoloute scum! Booked 2 cars with full insurance and waivers, told there would be no more costs. On arrival after waiting over an hour to be collected from the airport we were driven by bus to the depo, which is not at the airport as was advertised. Went to colelct the car only to be handed additional costs, several customers in front of myself arguing with staff who had been dealt the same dodgy hand.

Ended up paying the extra costs as we had no choice due to the time and family and baby sat waiting behind at the airport still for collection. I also had to pay a fee for something I cannot recall now but was assured I would get it back on return. This has still not been refunded 12 months later. I genuinely want to set their car park and staff alight, I cannot tell you in words how bad this company are.

Never, ever again!

I've rented with Centauro Lisbon 5 times (+1 in Spain) since Sep 2019. For the most part, I've not had any issues. My main advice as this goes for all rental services is to pay for the premium/full insurance, I honestly cannot deal with the hassle of having to worry about a deposits/chasing refunds etc. Centauro's prices are very reasonable so this is probably why I'd not had many issues.

However recently I noticed I was given a voucher of 89 EUR for a past cancellation, which I found strange as I didn't remember cancelled but I checked back and the free cancellation took place in June - I received the e-mail in November so instead of refunding me they gave me a voucher 5 months later... The e-mail also says that if I don't respond/acknowledge receipt in 3 months a refund is no longer possible. This is only made worse by the fact the voucher isn't working on their website and they're not responding. I will probably need to consider switching to a different company.

STAY AWAY Be very careful, stay away from Centauro rent a car. They provide cars with damages that are not shown on the delivered note just to stay with your deposit This is their business model. I rented frequently cars when traveling and Centauro rent a car Porto was the worse experience ever.
I rent a car in Centauro Porto Portugal, when the car was given to me I have detect several defects that were not report in the delivery note. I mention the damaged-on wheels to Centauro responsible that told me that the screech in the wheels were fine and the other wheels were marked. My mistake was that I trust in Centauro and did not took pictures. For a small scratch in the two wheels (that I was told that was not a problem), they charge me 1000 euros.
When inquire why they don’t fix the other wheels marked in the delivery note from the previous damages, they told that the wheels can still be used therefore no need to fixed although they charged the customer for fixing them. I ask my self how many times different customers must pay for the same damaged since they do not noted intentionally all the damages in the car in the delivery note.
Clearly Centauro rent car business model is not to rent cars but charge their costumer for damages that they not make and stay with your deposit. I have read several reviews in the internet about Centauro rental car and I can see that we are not the first ones with similar complains. Centauro has very dishonest business model. THE Message is simple STAY AWAY from Centauro Rent a car.

I was given a dirty car with dry windscreen washer reservoir. The car has multiple scratches that were not marked in the contract. To my complain manager David asked me to make photos which I did. However he was lazy and did not want to list all the issues with the car to the contract. So I have to defend myself and prove all these was when I took the car on return.

Overall, everything came pretty smoothly. It took a little long, but good customer service

They took an additional unauthorised payment of €430 after I had returned the car in July with no warning.... I have been chasing for 2 months asking why/when they will be returning the money and have heard nothing since.

Avoid at all costs

I quite often rent cars...Avis, Hertz and the smaller firms. The offer seemed suspiciously cheap but I thought I'd give them a go. Read all the small print and was half expecting to get caught out on some technicality once we were at their depot (a couple of miles from Lisbon Airport when options would have been limited).

Pickup was seamless as they happened to be there already, 5 minutes to their depot - no wait at the desk and everything explained clearly. No heavy upsell to their own insurance (I have independent excess cover). Almost all existing dents were pre-recorded on the contract form but I found another couple of small ones which they happily added. Paid for small car (Fiat 500) and got a current model Ford Fiesta. The full tank was actually full rather than the usual 95%. When we returned the car I was braced for a forensic examination but they walked quickly round, checked the fuel and mileage and promptly released the 'blocked' excess amount and fuel deposit back to my card. Cases in the minbus and a 2 minute wait to go back to the airport. I realise we may just have been lucky but the whole thing was seamless...we are back next summer and will be booking with them again (and I will review them again as well)

We rented a car through centauro which was collected on the 15th August at Porto Airport. 

When we collected the car, the tyres pressures were low. We had to get these done before we drove out of your office.

On the 22nd August 2020, the engine dashboard light and the ESC light came on. I therefore called the customer service around 18:47pm requesting assistance for the car. I was told that they will log the call and somebody would call me back.

At 19:30, after waiting 40 minutes for a call, I called customer service again to find out how long assistance would come. I was then told that they would send a truck to my location (Sesinbra) which was 50km from Lisbon airport and we would need to arrange for our own taxi to Lisbon airport. Bearing in mind we also had kids.

We were also told the truck would be with us in 30-45 minutes. The truck didn't arrive until around 21:15pm. 

Having looked on the website which stated the office closed at 11pm, this gave us approx an hour to sort the paperwork out for the existing car and get to Lisbon Airport to get another car.

We had to arrange our own transport by ordering an uber to get us to Lisbon Airport before the office closed.

When we arrived at Centauro in Lisbon, around 10:30, we spoke to the customer service representative at the desk and was told that we needed to pay €170 for the assistance truck plus the mileage. We were told that the car would be sent to Opal for a diagnostics and would take approximately an hour for the result, bearing mind it was the weekend. So essentially this would have been done on Monday 24th. We were also told that once the diagnostics report comes back and if it is a manufacturing fault then we would receive a refund of the service of the truck plus our uber costs.

When we received the replacement car, it was the same make and model, the car wasn't cleaned to standard considering covid-19 is happening, no one was there to handover the car to do checks. We had to request this and all checks to be noted. 

We were also told by a member of staff that this fault is quite common in opals. 

When we arrived on the 25th August at Porto airport to return the car. No one was aware of the situation. 

We also had to wait half hour for the shuttle bus to take us to the airport, we had asked 3 times to find out and didn't get a proper answer - literally it was hold, 1minute someone would be there. We also got dropped off at arrivals rather than departures. We had 5 suitcases and kids. This is a service which has been paid for.

We travel to portugal twice a year for the past 20 years and have never had issues with rental cars. This was the first time we have experienced such issues. We therefore feel that the customer service has been very poor and communication is nil. 

The fact that kids were involved and their priority for this is shocking for their safety and your customers.

The company Centauro was good. We had a good car, the personal was very nice and competent, the shuttle bus correct and the return of the car was fast and easy.
But we have a problem with the guarantee deposit, in our contract with wisecars was written 100€ of deposit, but the company charged 1200€ In the web page of wisecars.es there was an advertisement In green letters that Centauro charged you a low deposit (100€) but it was not true, I booked the car for this reason, I felt disappointed with Wisecars.
I am waiting the return of 109€ as a deposit for the ‘Vias verdes’, a card that permits you passing for the motorway.

Great car. Good service. BUT looks like they have retained the 100 Euro deposit and 45 Euro fuel deposit in my refund even though I returned the car with more fuel and road tolls only came to 35 Euros. Not possible to make direct contact and no response to my website enquiries. Shame but will keep trying.

My recent experience with them was very positive. Rented a small car from Lisbon Portela airport for a week. Received a complimentary upgrade to an SUV on arrival. There were no hard selling techniques, no tricks, no problems. Checked the car, took some pictures for peace of mind. Car return was fast and easy, deposit refunded on the spot. Will use them again.

225 euro damage costs for a scratch under the front bumper! i asked for a receipt ( they refused), I asked for proof that the work had been done ( the refused) and when I pointed out that the only way the scratch could be seen is if I laid on the ground with a torch, they said that I had signed the acceptance agreement. Do not use this company, there are many more who are straight and honest with their customers!

Awful - total rip off
despite already having insurance bought in advance they refused to let us take the car unless we bought their overpriced and unnecessary insurance. Total rip off.

Great Value, Car was clean and relatively new, it had a few scratches on it which once we pointed it out to the staff they were happy to sign off. Desk Staff were courteous and very helpful, and spoke excellent English. Only issues I would have is 1. More staff manning the desks for the later flights. 2. Transfer to Office was a bit chaotic and not very organised (only 1 person looking after all passengers in Airport). Apart from that I was very happy using Centauro PT and would have no problem using them again in the future.

No problems whatsoever with our hire agreement from Heraklion, Greece. Car was ready - no queue - no quibbles on damage and supplied full to full. On return, no problems and accepted back. Fuel was credited to my account within 3 working days. I've rented 100's of cars and this was a pleasant experience.

We had a great experience for a cheap car. Very good customer service and very good price. Thanks

Got my car at the Lisbon Airport counter. Check in was slightly slow but pleasant and efficient. Return was very smooth, I was particularly happy to see my deposit returned immediately and with zero inconvenience, despite the worries that arose from the negative reviews I read here. Definitely recommend