Drivalia UK - LONDON STANSTED AIRPORT Reviews 

Arrived just five minutes over the one hour allowed because our flight was a little delayed and then shuttle bus to the hire desk was 15 minutes late as the bus driver needed a break because of the heat . Receptionist was not around when we arrived but when she appeared she told us they already had hired our small car to others as were over an hour late and we had forfeited the hire ( there was no one else in sight) .She said All they had left was a huge SUV and we were stuck with no car and a 3 hour drive to get to our destination . We were charged twice once for original hire and again for SUV !! We made a complaint to customer services but got nowhere .!! Be warned !!!!! We will never use them again

Great Service from the manager and his team at the Stansted airport branch, fast, friendly and efficient service. Will use again definitely

Tiago was very helpfull. Great service

If I could give them a negative review, it would be -5/5. Just emerged from a gruelling experience over outrageous treatment, which ended, happily for me, in a favourable legal settlement.
This company lied, cheated and dragged their feet all the way to the courts - then didn’t even bother to defend themselves. Which was a clear admission of fault on their part.
They breached their original contract with me, then surcharged me £630 at the pick-up point on top of my original payment - ‘generously’ reduced from £800+! The poor foreign family next to me at the desk were getting even worse treatment.
DO NOT BOOK WITH THEM, is my advice

Forced to take out CDW which cost £380 because despite being from the UK and having my driving icense and credit card stating my home address and providing a bank statement with my home address on it, they insisted upon a Utility bill. This requirement is not stated on the booking voucher. So I think its a clever way of extracting money from their customers. I was more than happy to allow them to block a large amount on my credit card. Secondly, they took the details from my passport and didn't hand it back or put it on the counter, so I left it there. Obviouly that is partly my fault but they never messaged me to let me know. When I realied I'd lost my passport it was really stressful and it took 3 phone calls to them over 24 hours before they went to check and said they had it. Interestingly, they ahd quite a number of passports in their lost property box!

0 Star – By far the worst car rental experience I have ever had. I have rented cars all over Europe for many years, and this is, without question, the worst experience I have ever had.

I prepaid £132 for a six-day rental from Stansted Airport. Our flight was slightly delayed, but when we arrived there was only one employee on the desk trying to answer phone calls while serving customers. We waited patiently for 45 minutes before we were even called to the counter.

When we finally reached the desk, I was told we were over two hours late. I explained that almost an hour of that “delay” was spent standing in Drivalia’s own queue.

The employee acknowledged this, yet the check-in process then took another 30 minutes with the usual paperwork, DVLA checks and forms.

The situation became even worse after I declined Drivalia’s ridiculously overpriced insurance. I was then informed that my prepaid vehicle had been given away because I was “late”, and the only car available was a larger vehicle costing an additional £190. My original £132 booking suddenly became £332.

I had already paid in full for the vehicle. Expecting customers to pay a substantial surcharge because of delays largely caused by your own understaffing and painfully slow check-in process is completely unacceptable.

To add insult to injury, I then went back onto Booking.com to look for an alternative because I refused to hand any more money to these cowboys. Drivalia appeared again offering another car for approximately £100 less than the price they had just demanded from me at the desk.

How can a vehicle be available online at a substantially lower price while a prepaid customer standing at the counter is being told they must pay an extra £190? The whole situation felt like blatant profiteering and daylight robbery.

There was no attempt to resolve the issue, no goodwill, and no practical solution. I was simply told to contact Booking.com.

I would strongly advise anyone considering Drivalia to think twice. If you value your time, expect reasonable customer service, or assume that a prepaid booking will actually be honoured, you may be very disappointed.

The staff were brilliant especially yamna and kamilla

Booked through RyanAir.
Car and paperwork not ready upon arrival.
In reservation asked for children chair. No chair in car once paperwork and keys was handed. Had to redo all paperwork again. It took more than an hour to check out car due to some manager approval which was required to change the contract in computer system due to the child chair.

Once car was returned they charged me for damages caused by previous customers. I am trying to contact customer service to make a complaint as I do have video footage as proof damages was there before I checked out the car.

Also their location is far out than other rental companies in Stansted. Overall a shit experience.

TRAVELLERS BEWARE:
They may refuse the car you rented, AND not issue any refund

This is what happened to me with them.
On June 19th I had come to pick up a car (rented for 9 days) - the staff did the following:

- they refused to hand me the car because, they claimed, I could not prove my residence (I offered bank statements, credit card statements and even my tenancy agreement)

- the staff clearly, and REPEATEDLY, said "we are sorry we cannot give you the car but all the monies WILL BE REFUNDED to you"

- after three weeks of chasing the refund, Drivalia Customer Care got back and said that NO REFUND will be given, contradicting the very statements of their staff

So, travellers BEWARE carefully before engaging with this company

I am considering to sue them for severe misrepresentation - their very staff refused me the car, mentioned I'd receive at least a refund for the rental, then their HQ refused that

is this fair to any of you?

Scamers - my flight into Stansted was delayed by 1.5 hours (as were most flights during this heatwave). I had entered flight details when l booked the car and also called from departure airport when flight was delayed. I called the number given in the booking and same number as on website for branch and was on hold for 30 minutes with no one answering. l had to hang up as we were taking off. When l got to the rental office, l was told that the vehicle l booked was no longer available and l had no choice but to pay for an 'upgrade' for the same vehicle l booked but with automatic transmission. This 'upgrade' cost me more than what l paid for the original booking. I rent vehicles frequently, and have rented from Drivalia before without issues - but this is the worst experience I have ever had.

In Drivalia's response below they ask to notify the branch if late - I did call, but nobody answered the phone despite me hanging on for 30-minutes ...

I booked car hire through Ryanair and was impressed with ryanair's booking procedure. That's the end of the good news!
Our flight Turin to Stanstead was due to lane at 20 past midnight 2/7/26 but was delayed by an hour and a half. As requested in the terms and conditions I phoned the number for Drivalia to let them know.
Then the scam charges started.
Extra 100 pounds for out of office pick up time despite it being confirmed and accepted on the car hire voucher.
Extra 100 pounds to return the car outside of their opening hours, despite being booked and accepted.
Extra 100 to 300 pounds as they would let my small car go to someone else (How their depot was closed until 8:00am) and I would need to pay for whatever upgraded car was available.
Extra insurance costs despite buying ryanair's xcover CDW excellent insurance.
The car was a two day rental and my Ryanair car higher voucher gave a TOTAL price (paid in full) and stated NOTHING TO PAY AT THE COUNTER.

I know when I am being scammed and this was obvious. Under no circumstances was I giving this scammer my credit card details and authorization for 2500 pounds with no chance of refund.

Walked away from the booking and got train tickets to Birmingham, and used taxis locally and made it to the wedding venue before their office opened.
Rail fares and taxi costs were a lot less than than the extras this scammer would have taken from my credit card.

DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY.

I WILL LET RYANAIR KNOW THEY ARE PARTNERED WITH AN UNSCRUPULOUS COMPANY AGAIN!

Customer service in Stansted - Camila os very rude person. My experience with this car rental company was very disappointing. Camila was rude and made no effort to help resolve our issue. She wrongly accused us of making multiple reservations. When I asked her to verify the information, it turned out that the reservations were not connected to me at all. Instead of apologizing for the mistake, she acted as if nothing had happened.

The customer service was unprofessional, and I felt that the company was only interested in making money rather than treating customers with respect or helping them when problems arise.

I would not recommend this car rental company.

I booked my car rental via Economy Car Rentals with Drivilia Stansted, my Ryan air flight from Bergerac was delayed an hour as a result Drivilia upon arrival at there desk told me my car was no longer available. I frequently use Car Rentals at Stansted, Bergerac and occasionally Bordeaux and this has never happened to me before. This is the first time I have used this broker and car hire firm. I was charged £50 extra a day to get an available car, the first BMW was in such a disgusting state I rejected it and the second also stunk of vape fumes was dirty had 2 parking ticket remnants on the front window screen,
The Agent on the desk found everything too much trouble and I wasn’t alone, other customers were surprised at my patience, calmness and commented this too me.
I’m a great believer in voting with your feet so will never use Economy Car Rentals or Drivalia again, and I feel a responsibility to highlight this to other potential customers.

I booked a car through Ryanair. The flight was delayed and by the time I got to the office to collect my car it was closing time. I was asked for 100 pound more for turning up late. Which I agreed to pay, they then requested me to put my son as a second driver as he was with me, which was not needed but I agreed to do it to get the car and go. They then kept pushing for me to get the premium insurance even though it is not required and I was okay to have the larger excess. They wouldn't take no as and answer and kept pushing. This would have massively increased the amount to pay as I already had agreed to add two more items. The refusal to take no was what made me decide I didn't want a car from this company. The flight was from Cork to Stansted which should of left 21:00 but took off by 22:00.

The whole service offered by this company was below par!! Do not use them!
The staff are sullen-faced and not helpful!
They wouldn't know what a customer focused service was!
They are money grabbing too!!
We had a PCN for parking for 42 minutes at the M&S next door (limit 30 mins) - topping up the petrol & buying some food & eating it in the car & so had a PCN. No point fighting it!!
Then to add to that, Drivilia added on a £60 'ADMIN' fee to let the company know our address!!
I travel to UK frequently. I won't be using them again. Disgusting!! £60!!

Our family has been using Drivalia (and its previous incarnation, Easirent) for many years and have always received a courteous service and fair deal for a fair price.
On this past trip there were clearly problems, in terms of staff on the ground and available to engage with customers/prepare the vehicles. With only one guy in the office (who said that he would be on his own for the next fortnight) it was nearly an hour that I had to wait to collect my car. There were other people in the same boat as me. With no disabled access into the office, my wife had to wait outside in her wheelchair for the duration. When it was my turn to be served, the formalities were completed with no hint of an apology for the delay. I was given the car fob and told that it could be found in the car park.
It was a white car and it was evident that it had been poorly/ill-prepared for its next rental. The brake dust on the wheels told the story that it had not seen a bucket of water for a while. The dashboard seemingly had sticky liquid on it from what looked like a spilled drink.For my own satisfaction I took a walk-around video on my phone, and I had to touch the bodywork in a number of places to distinguish between what was an existing blemish on the car and what was a dirty mark.
When I returned the car at the appointed time, the vehicle was carefully scrutinised with particular attention to the wheels and tyres. The staff member checking the car said that I had made a small scuff on the OSF wheel, which surprised me. She said that this would be chargeable but I contended that this mark was visible on my (albeit low-resolution) video. We disagreed on this so the subject was moot and I was charged. And to add insult to injury, a male colleague told her a couple of times to “check the tyre” - she told him that the tyre was fine but he repeated it. So when she looked again, further around the tyrewall - not adjacent to the wheel scuff - there was a small bulge. They then said that the wheel and tyre damage would have been caused by me going down into a pothole. I know for a fact that I never caused any such damage but what could I do? And so £515 was deducted from my credit card deposit there and then.
I subsequently ran my video of the wheel/tyre in question through an AI programme, and it said that the damage could well have already been there from what it could make of the images. I did contact Drivalia to challenge this issue, but was told that I would have to provide new evidence to take this matter forward.
So, given my experience - and seemingly the experience of a number of other Drivalia customers at certain other branches, I would advise the following.
1. Never accept a car for rental unless you the vehicle has been properly cleaned both inside and outside. That way you can more easily spot and record pre-existing damage.
2. Make sure that you take high-quality photos/videos of the vehicle, paying particular attention to the wheels and tyres. From reading other reviews from various branches, this seems to be the area where the “bonuses” can be made. I read one review where one customer was charged for apparently making an existing wheel-rim scrape even longer, so let’s be careful out there! I’m not convinced that kerb-rash gets repaired.
3. Consider taking out third-party excess insurance cover, from a company such as Worldwideinsure.com. Much cheaper to take out such an annual policy than opting for the rental companies’ own insurance cover. I’ve already had my costs for the above damage reimbursed, so it’s worthwhile.
And, finally, to Drivalia if you read this review: don’t bother writing the standard “We’re sorry to hear about your experience…” BS below this review. If you were really sorry, you might have been a bit more interested in what I had to say when I previously contacted you. I shan’t be coming back or recommending you anytime soon…

Awful experience! Waited over an hour to be served by the one member of staff. Every customer in the queue had difficulties (pre-booked cars not available, unable to checkin online, very long waiting times). Booked for a young driver through a third party then told we needed 'permissions' which we weren't told about. Daily mileage limited to 100 miles which is unreasonable (hadn't seen in the small print to be fair but even so). Then told we needed to pay extra for full insurance because our returning flight was before office hours. Gave up and booked an Uber!
I have been renting cars from different places for years and this is by far the worst company I have dealt with. They put every hurdle in the way to renting a car! Won't be using them again.

As I said in my previous review, indeed we unhesitatingly used Drivalia again, and our experience was similarly great. We were initially served by Yamna like last time, and not only she but all of the staff we dealt with were pleasant and professional. The process of taking and returning the car is quick. The bus from the airport to Drivalia is prompt and easy to find, and free for Drivalia customers. The car was clean and new. Price was competitive. Once more, would certainly use again.