I’m off on a short holiday to the island of Corsica and in the preparation for this trip my wife and I decided to rent a car to cruise across the island.
We then entered the complex realm of rental cars. The sites that you visit to find a suitable car, often feel a bit shady and cheap. They sort of promise you the availability of a car, but it often involves the disclaimer “or similar”. In this process I learned about the various car classes and SIPP-codes (Standard Interline Passenger Procedure) that are used and in the end I decided to go with a “CDAR“ car. Compact, Automatic with at least two doors; perfect.
After comparing some sites I went with Sixt because of the similar pricing but better UX. The design looks clean and trustworthy. The simple interface made me understand the various options and helped me to choose the right car. I deliberately choose a non-electric vehicle from the list because we didn’t see a whole lot of charging options on the island and that would not match with our itinerary. So that’s it, payed, all set for the holiday…
When arriving on Corsica we went to the Sixt office to pick up our car; drivers licence, reservation number, credit card, all good, but you guessed it: car not available. “We don’t have petrol fuelled cars on Corsica” is what the lady at the counter said. I was not amused because after carefully selecting a car service I learned that I have made a mistake to trust this service, but at the same time, there are very little options to resolve it.
She tried to explain that the site is generic, and that therefore it lists all of the worldwide options; not the specific Corsica ones. My version of the story was that I filtered the availability based on location, date and car preference, but then there were still electric and non-electric options…. The interface and how the service actually works became the main point of discussion and we decided it’s not worth the fight.
After some deliberation she convinced us that there were enough charging station available and that the milage was sufficient; we took the car she arranged and our electric rental car experience began!
What are your experience when renting a car? Did you get an interesting upgrade or did the extra insurances options turn out to save your day?