CarDelMar Reviews 

For the second year running, we had to queue for over half an hour for service at the car-rental desk at Gran Canaria Airport.. even though there were only a handful of people in front of us.. it just seems to take forever to get people sorted.. Once we got served, we were dealt with quickly and efficiently by the Avis staff.. so not sure if its the staff, or more likely just having to wait behind people who have not got themselves properly prepared.. either way, frustrating when you arrive late and just want to get your car and go. Also, for the second time with Car-Del-Mar, the car we were given was not quite as big as the one we had ordered.. In our last booking, we ordered a "Ford Galaxy or equivalent", and got a Citroen Grand Picasso; this time we ordered a "Citroen Picasso or equivalent", and got a Citroen C4 Aircross.. in both cases, decent enough cars, but not as big as we thought, and, of course, we had ordered the size of car we needed for the people travelling, plus their luggage. Overall, the value for money was excellent, but I would prefer it if they would be honest about the car you will get.

Don't use.
Rental company stole money from my credit card with no reason. Cardelmar agreed to refund. Gave me two weeks to send bank details (I was away) and then closed complaint! Been trying for 4 months to get them to reopen. Terrible after service. Never answer phone and when finally do, just fob you off. Still no repayment from July, now end of November.
Avoid.

Very straightforward process throughout and a good deal.

I had made sure to read through the T&Cs that Car del Mar sent me and everything seemed fine. Once I got to Kefilonia Airport to pick up my car from Europcar there was a problem. I had made the mistake of bringing an invalid credit card. So I cancelled my reservation, the reps at Europcar said I should get a refund, and so I have tried to persue this and I've been told that I'm not entitled as I cancelled on the day rather than 24 hours before. The confusing part was that according to Car del Mar's T&Cs I had to study Europcar's T&Cs as well. but they contradict eachother. Car del Mar wanted to charge an underage surcharge, but Europcar didn't. Europcar said I should get a refund, but Car del Mar said I can't. Whose T&Cs should I listen to? If this wasn't bad enough, the customer services for Car del Mar were unhelpful and sounded like they just got out of bed. The website was impossible to navigate and I feel like they have taken my money for a service I didn't use and that they really don't care about keeping me as a customer. Not using them again. Don't reccomend them.

We hired two cars through CarDelMar for a week in Mallorca in October 2015. I have annual excess insurance so didn't purchase further insurance, but we paid an extra €25.68 to cover the excess on my wife's hire. When we arrived in Mallorca we were told that we only had third-party insurance and, to cut a long story short, were told we would have to pay a further €122.48 in insurance in order to cover ourselves fully. On return I contacted CarDelMar and was told that I shouldn't have paid any more, that the excess we had paid them was unrefundable and we 'shouldn't have allowed ourselves to be talked in to paying any more'. OK, that's bad enough, but please, please, please, never hire through Goldcar as they are a complete rip-off and certainly should not be offered by CarDelMar. My biggest complaint is with the hire company, but since the deal was brokered through CarDelMar, I have to leave a poor review for them as they were no help in sorting out my complaint. We had chosen a full to full deal but had to pay €82.66 upfront which we were told we would get back on return. We dutifully filled the cars up on return but a week later and we have still to receive anything. We've tried contacting the company, but have yet to receive anything from them.

Easy to book online; sometimes the rental company tries to give me a car I don't want but if I decline they give me what I requested in the first place; what I get in terms of online experience and service has always been in line with what I expect. I'll continue to use them.

I ordered a convertible for a week in the sun and what they ACTUALLY gave me was a car with a sunroof (Citroen C3)......I paid extra for the convertible so I was REALLY angry.
When you're stuck out there and there are no other car choices they have you by the short and curlies but this behaviour is unreasonable and outside of Trade Descriptions.

This company provided an excellent service. My wife and I were picked up in the airport car park and driven by minibus a sort distance to the office where we picked up our car. The friendly staff checked my details and after an examination of the car (first time ever with any rental company) we were on our way.
Seven days later we return the car, it was examined by staff, and were returned to the airport.
Its a no brainer where I will hire a car next time I go to Portugal!

I opted for buying insurance,when im booking with cardelmar, however when I was at the airport Ive been told that I dont have insurance, thus ended up paying a huge premium for the insurance again!. So I payed twice to insure the same rental, either terrible service integration, since theyve told me that they cant see the insurance Ive purchased tru cardelmar, or they are lying. Also when I booked the car was selected as limitless miles, whereas I had to pay extra %50 percent of the car value for unlimited miles. A terrible experience overall. I ve payed more than double of what I payed tru cardelmar on the arrival without any car upgrades or anything. Frustrating, careless, ridiculous experience.

I booked a large family car (we are 5) through CarDelMar 6 months in advance. When we arrived at the airport after a 10hr flight, the rental provider Thrifty said they would not honour the booking class and said we had to accept a downgrade or pay extra for the class we paid for through CarDelMar.

Thrify also tried to hard sell at extra charge things which were inclusive in the CarDelMar deal, like an additional driver and excess. We were forced to accept the downgraded car and request a part refund from CarDelMar.

We wrote to CarDelMar on their complaints case system. We have only had an computer generated response confirming receipt of our complaint, over 2 weeks later. If you try phoning you are left on their premium rate number.

Our next step is take action for breach of the Supply and Sales of Goods and Services Act to a small claims court and forward the case to Watchdog and the Consumer Association.

My car brokedown during my holiday and I was forced to came back to airport to replace it. Unfortunately lady in counter was not able to communicate in English. I LOST all day of my holiday and nobody apologised or offer kind of compensation.Than another lady who I called informed me I can fill up my car near airport and they are open early morning, and they are closed so I was not able to fill up. Very unprofessional service.I do expect comprehensive explanation and money back for half tank of petrol.

CarDelMar offered the best quote on a 4x4 for a roadtrip around Iceland - over £600 cheaper for 10 days than some competitors. They clearly communicated that there would be charges at the local rental company, but these were minimal and were not a surprise. The website was easy to navigate and well communicated.

Our local rental company was Go Iceland. The car was brand new, after a complimentary upgrade when we arrived, with a built in Satnav - which saved us some money. They were very diligent and friendly, and made sure we understood everything. They also graciously refunded us for a bottle of oil we had to purchase as the car mysteriously ran out of oil half way around the trip.

Altogether a pleasant and positive experience - and I would happily use both companies again.

Easy to book online. Got full insurance included at the time of booking so did not have pay anything extra at the desk. The car was very new and clean. The pick up and return were totally hassle free.

worked perfectly well.

The customer service is ok, but they don't have Twitter or Facebook. So, than we didn't get the desired car. Not even the equivalent. How is a Skoda the equivalent of an Audi?? In that case I paid to much and don't know how to get money back. Other than that it's ok.

Very good all round service

Just back from a holiday to Sardinia after using Car del Mar. I stupidly didnt read the reviews before using Car del Mar and just went on the cheapest price on a comparison website. I booked the car 4 days before travelling.

Here is a comprehensive list of what went wrong:

1. The website didnt work so i couldnt enter my details online.

2. When i called up and booked the car, the gentleman on the other end got my email address wrong so i didnt get my confirmation email until the day of travel when i phoned up to check. I appreciate that this can happen but the mistake wasn't one letter wrong it was a completely wrong email address which given i had spelt it out to the operator twice was disappointing.

3. The price quoted on the website was £141, I asked for a sat nav as well which they said was £28 but they said they wouldn't charge me until i got there as they needed to speak to the local team to confirm if they had one. Checking my credit card statement before i left they had charged me £159 (the invoice they sent didn't itemise the costs) so i can only assume they had already included the fee. Once i arrived at the car hire place at the airport, the actual rental company i was renting from said that CardelMar hadnt contacted them about the sat nav. Thankfully they had one spare in the office but they charged me £28 so i paid twice which is fun! (Looking at the other comments and experiences i will try to chase this as a refund but do not hold out any hope!)

4. As with some of the earlier posts you will read be very aware that Car del mar is a broker NOT the actual rental car company. What this means is that if you get insurance with Car del mar and had an accident, the local rental company would make you pay them for the damaages and then you would have to claim this back from car del mars insurance. Thankfully i didnt have an accident but if i did i may have ended up having to pay a lot of cash up front and then having to go through a pretty laborious process judging from the other experiences to get my money back much later. Whilst this fact is in your insurance contract i think it is not very clear at all and if it wasnt for the fact i work in insurance and know what to look for then i wouldnt have spotted it.

Because of what i read about the company and its insurance policy i actually bought the rental cars company own insurance (£30) for peace of mind as i didnt fancy being significantly out of pocket.

Overall my recommendation would be go direct to the car rental company rather than use this middlemen as they are not good at all.

They may come up as the cheapest but i would avoid them if you can afford it.

Nice car. No problems. I'm tall and usually like more head room.

The rent a car company when in spain!

Good car as requested, easy pick up and drop off, best price.