Better enforcement of car rental standards

Did you ever book a car online and find out you had to pay more when you get to the rental desk? Last year, this was the case for 2,000 consumers in Europe, who reported these issues to the European Consumer Centres, which help consumers when they travel or buy cross border.

Following a strong increase of the number of complaints on car rental issues, the European Commission and national consumer authorities engaged with the five leading car rental companies to address these issues.

The authorities have now decided to conclude this phase of the enforcement cooperation, saying they were satisfied with the changes brought by the five industry leaders – Avis, Europcar, Enterprise, Hertz and Sixt – to their commercial practices, which now comply with EU consumer rules. These five companies represent two out of three of all private car rentals in the EU.

The EU trade association, Leaseurope, which helped set up the action from the industry side, is also developing further their guidelines for the whole car rental sector.

The number of complaints for the car rental sector doubled between 2010 and 2016, while the overall number of complaints received by ECCs only increased by two-thirds.