David Reviewed on Jun 6, 2019, 7:17 PM

Carrentals.com offers great rental rates, but not necessarily the insurance to go with it unless you are a US citizen, which I am not. I studied the fine print in great detail, and concluded that the insurance rate of $9 per day only applies to US citizens. I wanted zero excess coverage, but could not find it offered via the website. I think I may have found an offer of 1500 euros excess, but this was not what I wanted. I received regular emails urging me to take out insurance now rather than at the Budget office, but nowhere could I see what I wanted. I phoned Budget to discuss, but they said it was a contract through carrentals.com that they had no connection with, and that I would have to deal with them. They could not offer insurance in advance. This proved difficult: you cannot phone carrental.com, and their help/contact page is infuriating. In the end, I had to buy the insurance at pick-up, and it cost almost 27 euros per day, which is huge. I reckon there may be a lot of car renters out there who think they are covered, but actually are not (unless they are US citizens), and many others who accept 1500 euro excess confident that they are very unlikely to have an accident. As for Budget itself, they are very high-handed in helping themselves to significant deposits on your credit card, which then seem to take a long time to refund. I am still waiting for mine after 5 weeks. Also, they offered me a refreshments tab due to a late supply of a vehicle, and a rebate for a downgrade in car size, which they assured me would show up in the final invoice. It did not. When I skyped them to discuss the matter, it cost me $8 because their number is set at a premium rate. It makes me angry just recounting this, and I will not rent from them, or ideally anyone else, again. I suspect that Budget is no worse than other car rental companies — it’s a shonky, underregulated business, imho.