Drivalia UK - BRISTOL AIRPORT Reviews 

Thank you for your swift response to my review left on Trust Pilot, 20th July.

However, as per your correspondence stating to contact you if delayed, this was tried, but failure from your staff to answer a call, made it impossible to relay that the flight was delayed, therefore, I feel that it was unfair that we penalised for failures on behalf of your company.

Recorded letter will be sent to Roberto Sportiello this week, including a copy of your reply on Trust Pilot.

Do not use Drivalia at Bristol Airport.
No pick up from terminal you have to walk half a mile down busy roads.No duty of care concerns especially in 29 deg C temps.
Vehicle had so many small dents, scratches, stained seats and a broken wing mirror not listed on the original vehicle condition report that we spent almost an hour getting the original report corrected. This took at least 2 extra visits back to the office for your representative to rescan the changes, one of which, the broken wing mirror moulding, he was fully aware of but had not noted on the original report. It should be noted the Drivalia agent did not get up from his seat and visit the car with us during the entire time we went through this inspection. He was just only concerned to close up and go home for the day.
The vehicle was dirty inside and out and the windscreen glass appears to have not been cleaned on the inside for weeks. The Drivalia depot is a simple gravel covered lot which throws up so much dust in dry weather that the car was so dusty it made inspection for scratches and window glass defects very difficult. When I started the car a change oil warning light came on and I reported this to the agent but he fobbed me off with “all fluid levels have been checked and the car is good to go”.
We made a phone request for a pick up at the terminal but this was refused. The dusty gravel yard ruined our luggage, disgraceful depot conditions.
In summary, the agent’s only interest was in getting the excess paperwork payment done, zero interest in the state of the vehicle and I’m sure now that I foresee that I’m going to have to fight for return of my excess deposit as there are so many defects with this dirty vehicle that we may have overlooked a small defect in the videos and photos we took prior to driving away.
I will be reporting these complaints to RyanAir who recommended Drivalia for hire car use.

Different invoices for the same matter without explanation.
My e-mails with a request for explanation are totally ignored. Off course the invoice with the highest costs are taken of the credit card.

Altough some people are nice everytime there are other issues. Mostly to earn more money
Note that Drivalia, U-safe and Green Motion are the same rental.

If your flight is delayed or you're held up in any way, Drivealia will take your money and cancel your booking. This is a scam, not a car rental business.

Saying that "To ensure we can manage vehicle availability for all our customers" we cancel your booking and take your money if you turn up after the booking period has begun suggests that Drivealia doesn't have enough cars to meet those booked by customers.

We booked a car for a week and paid for it in advance. On the day, knowing we'd be late to pick it up, we tried contacting Drivealia. Their website would not recognise our booking. Their phone was continually engaged. Nobody at the airport knew about Drivealia and there were no signs. Being unable to contact them, we arrived at their incredibly dodgy looking and muddy wrecking yard to find a few dirty cars. At the hut, after ignoring us for some time, the staff said our booking had been cancelled because we were according to them "no-show" even though we were there, face to face, well within the hire period we'd paid for.

We'd paid for a car for a week! Why turning up a few hours late, could they cancel the booking or charge us an amount of €200 which exceeded the actual rental fee for getting what we had already paid for?

While these almost illegal terms are noted in their fine print, I can't find any evidence of the actual terms in our contract.

It's possible that with everything going right, you might be able to get a car from Drivealia but if anything goes wrong, you'll be parted from your money in an instant without any recourse. If this isn't a scam, show me one!

We spent almost 2 hours trying to email, phone and msg this awful company to say that we would be late picking up the car and failed. So we dragged our bags through the rain, crossed the busy A road and found what looked like a scrap yard with one or two almost roadworthy vehicles. Pretty much as soon as we gave them our details, one staff member said the hire was cancelled and the other started talking about late pickup fees and dragged out a well thumbed piece of paper with what he called the "fine print."

Drivalia isn't part of the main hire car area of the airport. The shuttle buses don't go there and the shuttlebus drivers advise you to avoid Drivalia.

The website didn't recognise our booking and the phone numbers were either engaged or didn't work. Really, there are better solutions than Drivealia. We wasted the best part of a day and had a miserable frustrating experience.

Brilliant service and quick.and efficient. Very happy.

Awful company.
Plane was delayed 45mins, so they wanted to charge us 300£ for a late pick up. But only because the agent took 20 minutes with the previous customer. So he said that meant the system cant process us, as we were 1hour 5 minutes over the grace period. No explanation of how he got to 300£, he said it was 30£ for each day of the booking (how does that make any sense, and we had a week booking), that seems like fraud.
This is not a tactic of any other reputable rental company.

Simon and Mila are angels - we will never use anyone else- Most trusted car rental in the UK! Thank you

TERRIBLE EXPERIENCE AND SCAM!!! We rented a car online for our 4 day trip in Bristol for $113 euros. To begin with, once we got there they gave us a car different than the one promised. Since we were planning on doing a road trip through many country roads, our ride was very uncomfortable in the end. Secondly, we were forced to either pay 60$ extra a day to get their insurance, or the alternative, to block 1500 POUNDS for 28 DAYS from our bank account in order to pay a "co-insurance". None of these terms were properly updated in the information page and the customer service was very bad. Do not recommend.

Nice experience. All went seemless. Short walk from Bristol Airport
Marco was great to deal with

Do not book with this company. I booked and paid for a car to be collected from Bristol airport..at 1pm. My flight was delayed for an hour and when I got to the airport there were no signs to get there, its not with the other car rental companies. Was told by a bus driver to walk over a flyover during building works for 10 mins.. rang drivalia to ask them to send a courtesy bus to be told that I was over an hour late and they had no cars left. My booking was cancelled. I had to go to the other car rentals and pay £450.00 for 2 days as it was BH weekend and I hadn't booked... drivalia wont discuss or answer me just said go back to the broker carjet with any complaints.. kept my full £125.00 payment... rude staff.. go anywhere else but here !!!!

My wife and I rented an electric car for the first time with Drivalia for the weekend.
The car was clean and easy to drive.
All the staff were pleasant and helpful especially Mila who helped us with a speedy handover when we returned the vehicle, as we were running late for our flight.

Been using these guys for a while. They have been great. Not always an easy job and I'm pretty careful about pre hire checks. Never had an issue and return always prompt and quick.

Our contact was fantastic, friendly,helpful and professional. went out of his way to help in everyway, highly recommend.

I picked up my car from Luton Airport but the staff experience upon drop off at Drivalia Bristol Airport was second to none far superior to other car hire experiences. The staff were do helpful, polite and quick allowing me to get to my flight in good time.
Thanks again.
Emmet Dooley

@ EASYJET ….
I would not use this company at Bristol airport again. Really.
One person working (not his fault).
The wait is as 1 hour to just get to the desk. There were 3 car hires in front. Each one took very long. It’s a good job we were not on a time schedule.

After a long walk from the airport, a fairly unhelpful check in, an expensive upgrade to another tiny car which was really dirty and drove badly, loose gears and noisy, we got on the road only to find that the middle back seat belt didn’t work properly - we only upgraded due to an extra person joining.
It was one of the less pleasant car hire experiences, they could definitely work on their system.

I hired a car through booking.com from Drivalia Bristol Airport to collect to drive down to the coast for a wedding at the weekend.
Whilst the booking process seemed easy enough, it got more complicated when I arrived.
The company is a 10min walk from Bristol airport. When I called them to ask how to get there they gave directions. This includes walking down a dual carriageway with no pavement. There was no mention of the airport shuttle bus that stops right outside the hire car location.
The cost breakdown was
£116 car rental price
£27.82 insurance
£44.97 additional driver
£161.45 total
When I got there the two males on the desk told me I would then need to have at least £1500 available credit on my credit card to be placed as an insurance deposit. I didn’t see any mention of this when I booked through booking.com so was surprised.
I advised I could sort that but the colleague was not clear on when I returned the car that the funds would be released back to my card instead went on to talk in riddles about booking.com giving me this back and was unsure about the timelines.
He then asked me instead to pay £96.04 if I wanted to put a deposit on and drive more than 100miles per day
I was in a rush to get going and paid
I’ve no idea exactly what this £96.04 covered me for
It all seems a bit fly with hidden charges
There’s likely elements of the booking process which are fundamentally wrong on booking.com however from experience of hiring cars before this hasn’t been an issue
Whole experience wasn’t right when collecting the car
When dropping off a different colleague explained the situation better and with more clarity
I’m confused as to why I was asked to deposit £1500 with no clear timeline on getting this back, but then a payment of £96 was acceptable
I think that needs to be reviewed as I wouldn’t trust this brand again

Please do not use Drivalia. In particular the Bristol branch.

After a 20 minute walk from the airport (no shuttle) you will be met with incompetence, dishonesty and staff who cannot serve more than 2 customers without having a cigarette outside.

In the 30 minutes it took me to get my unclean vehicle, they cancelled two people’s rentals. One person questioned their policy. The next arrived 65 minutes after their pick up time (they rehire the vehicles after 60 mins.

If you don’t believe my review, please google the company, read more reviews and then book elsewhere.

Was closed when we went to pick up the car.