HolidayAutos.co.uk never more

That's the kind of things that we all fear, but why didn't you cancel the payment from the Credit card company? Now I do not knoew the consumer rights rules in UK (if you are in UK), but guess that they arn't too different over EU? At least here it woluld have been a singel phone call to each CC company - and a signature on a paper thaty would send me -and the money would be back on the account -the car rental would have to prove that they were entitled to the money.

To all others: When things go really wrong on CC - ALWAYS start contacting the CC company - they can more than you expect!

Who did you end up renting from?
I am going in two weeks.
I am only going to be in areas 1-2 hours from the airport.
Do I need a 4 wheel drive?

When things go really wrong on CC - ALWAYS start contacting the CC company - they can more than you expect!

Bjoern, you never know which way things can go from bad to worse. Last time I contacted my CC company on their emergency number I was told by recorded voice that I was 37th in the queue and expected time to wait was 72 min.
I was calling from a public phone in a small town in Colombia.

CC company - they can more than you expect!
Having had over €2500 stolen in a credit card fraud not so long ago, I can only agree with Fieldgate's reply in #3. When I noticed the theft, I called Mastercard's customer "service" center several times, had to deal with an average waiting time of 30 minutes (at €0,10/minute) and was then told after an "investigation" of 6 weeks that Mastercard had concluded that I must have made internet purchases myself for that amount and had no right for reimbursement.

After calling the web shop where I had supposedly made my purchases, I managed to get enough proof to the contrary within 10 minutes and eventually got all my money back after sending a 4-page complaint letter to those amateurs of Mastercard. I still wonder how they "investigated" my case, and have never received a reply on my questions about that - so far for the reliability of Mastercard.

Sorry for going off-thread, OP.

hehe - bad CC company you have? remember things like that calling a US-based number once. Seems that I am fortunate that the local offices of the CC-companies compete in getting the best yearly evaluation in customer service quality - never (rarely) waits more than 30 sec.

Also they need so here - if you are calling to close (a stolen/lost) card - the CC-company must cover any losses from the moment you have dialed their number. Gives a fast learning curve for customer support.

At least that was not OP situation : (s)he was at home(?) and could call the regular customer service number during normal office hours.

Dear Bjoern,

this is exactly what I did, called my bank asking for releasing the amount blocked due to error in HolidayAuto.co.uk reservation system. They told me they could start solving reclaim in case when money was charged incorrectly. The point was that funds were 'just' blocked, not charged. In such a case, bank waits either transaction for cancelling the blocking or payment confirmation. None of them was sent by HolidayAuto.co.uk therefore my bank released blocking the day after last day of blocking validity. I was very angry of HolidayAuto that they were not able to send cancelling transaction even I've asked them 5 times for that.

Kind regards,
Milos

Ok
Then you had bad service, a malfunctioning homepage etc - probably from a company that had very low prices (due to no ppl. to give service).
A Ryanair kind of experience except you never can get money back from Ryanair.
But in the end you did not loose anything.

Hey Boomster!

I've rented car from Budget via http://www.alp.is. There might be better rentals, hard to compare sometimes. I made trip around whole the island, driving mainly on 'Circle road'. For such a trip, 4wd car wil be just waste of money. Off-road car is needed if you want to use roads with number starting by F. I can recommend you to pay a front window insurance if you plan to use roads with gravel surface (also parts of Circle road). Personaly, I hit a rock to windows from oposit going car and had to pay the damage to the rental company. It wasn't cheap, you can imagine. Another experience, even Bugdet claimed 24 hour opening-time, rental counter opens at 6am. I arrived at 4am and had to wait for opening hours.

Enjoy your trip and good luck!
Milos

But in the end you did not loose anything.

Bjoern, it took me time, I had to pay fees for transfering money from saving account to the common one as all my funds were blocked. Lonely Planet recommends HolidayAutos. I warn other travellers to not use them as their system is not reliable and customer support level is poor. That's all.