Inter rent car rental at Gatwick

[Rome Addict]

Just a word of warning inter rent charged my friend 15£ for returning car with crumbs in cup holder.
I have yet to stay anywhere in the world where a hotel has a vacuum to clean a patrons cup holder.

Not sure if this is a scam by one company or a new way to create "addirional" revenue.

 

[Pauline]

I always return cars dirty and have never had a cleaning charge! I think their current way of making additional revenue is to charge a very high amount for any damage. We once had a small scratch, an inch long, and the charge was 800 Euro. It was covered by our rental car excess insurance. Another time and another small scratch and they wanted to charge us 150 Euro but I argued and they said since we didn't have extra insurance we could pay 90 Euro.

 

[Rome Addict]

As expensive as it is I usually end up taking the additional insurance. I discovered something on longer term rentals. Many companies have what they call "executive insurance" (or some equivalent). It is 10 to 15 days at a higher rate but the balance of the rental is without additional charges. So a 28 day rental cost $250 in insurance under the executive option vs $15 per day for 28 days ($420). So far both Avis and Budget have had this option.

 

[Ian Sutton]

We've certainly returned cars where, despite doing what we could without a vacuum, there has been dirt in the foot-wells of the front seats. Like Pauline, no charge. Indeed I would be surprised if any car wasn't briefly cleaned between uses as a matter of course.

 

[Rome Addict]

All rental cars are vacuumed, washed and fluids quickly checked between rentals. I had a friend who used to do this as a second job for a local branch of one of the nationals. He was always amazed at the stuff people left in rentals.

So cleaning a rental has always been part of the "flip". Just charging someone is new. Sort of the equivalent of paying for checked baggage.