How My Cheap $8 Rental Turned Into $100

When I went to Mallorca last month to check out the new Park Hyatt Mallorca, I had to rent a car since the airport is right about an hour from the resort. I went to my new go-to rental car site for European rentals – Holiday Autos – and was able to grab a Nissan Juke for $8 for a day.

How My Cheap $8 Rental Turned Into $100

It was from a company called Record Go. I could have spend an extra $18 to get it from something like Enterprise but I thought it would be helpful to see how well Record Go car rental did and if they would be an option in the future.

Prepay/Partial Refund

The page for the rental car listings said that this particular car company rental would be prepay fuel/partial refund. On the contract page, it did not say anything about the partial refund that I would receive so I asked about it at the rental car counter. I was told that I would receive a full refund for the fuel when I dropped the car off full.

Now No Refund

I dropped the car off full and was told that I would receive the refund for the $96 to my credit card within 5 business days. Fast forward 2 weeks and I still had not received any refund, even after contacting them several times. I never received a response via e-mail (which they told me was the only way to contact their customer service department) so I eventually opened a dispute with Chase for the charge.

Chase to the Rescue!

Strangely enough, I had a refund back to my card within a day or two after Chase opened the dispute! This was about a total of 3.5 weeks after returning the car. This left me with a sour taste for Record Go and I will not deal with them again (and probably not any company that is advertising through Holiday Autos as prepay fuel/partial refund due to the lack of transparency on the actual fee). But, it left me with yet another reason I am thankful for Chase in ways that go beyond the points I earn with them. I assume that it was their inquiries on my behalf that helped to prompt the refund. In the end, I finally was at the original cheap $8 rental so I was pretty happy!

Finally, I have had great success with Holiday Autos over and over and had great savings – even with the big name companies! Definitely give them a look if you are traveling in Europe as you could save some serious money.

Have you ever rented from Record Go? What was your experience and how was the partial refund handled?