Car hire recommendations

I would suggest that you go on the Airmalta website (Even if the flight isnt with them) and click on car hire... they use a cartrawler site that searches them all.

Alternatively use the ryanair website.

Julian

KWL at Qawra is pretty good and will deliver car to airport for collection...


these are supposed to be good too http://www.maltabest.com/

I live here and use raybezzinacarhire.com all the time. Graizella is great just book online and they will deliver anywhere for free and if you book for early in the morning she usually leaves it to you the previous evening at no extra cost. Example being my wee boy had party in Popeye Village last weekend, taxi there and back €54, got a 107 for €13.50 from Saturday evening until Monday morning.

wow man thats excellent....

Hi there.

I would reccomend a qawra based company callled Freeways (freewaysmalta.com)

I have used them for the last 2 years whilst holidaying on Malta and have had excellent service from them. Their pricing is very reasonable too, for example this june I will be hiring a large estate car from them for a week, and with collection from the airport and drop off at the airport is works out to be 147 Euro for the week.

hope this helps

Phillip

Just checking!!Our landlord for May and June offered us a good deal on a small car. Is this a scam or legit? No comeback if it's in poor condition as everything is paid up-front. All rather worrying.

Hard to say not knowing anymore details -)))
May and June are still a bit off season.

Cheers
Ricky

We have been offered car deals with our holiday rentals - but we only agree to the car part of it after we have arrived, so do not pay upfront for it. My advice would be to decline the offer until you arrive and see what you are getting. The landlord gets commission from the car people, so it's in their interest to discuss it with you even after you arrive, he will still be keen to get his cut. If he's not prepared to wait for your arrival I would be worried!

check on the insurance cover too.....

Budget has always given me very good service. If anything happens, such companies have a 24hour emergency service that a private person won't provide. On the other hand, the excess in case of accident has gone up a lot.
Check also John's Garage.

Have used [email protected] to get the best deal on a car. Apparently this site sends out weekly news letters with advice and good deals on almost anything - hotels, flights etc. Try it!

Never hire a car on RayBezzina car hire.
We have been robbed by then on our credit cards.
We had lot of problems with them, and once we paid, and they get extra charges on our accounts, they donŽt answer or attend our claims. They are now actually lying to the company throug we found them, atlaschoice trying to justify twice the money signed on our account for an accident on Malta.
We are now sueing against them to recover the money.

Hi jmateos,

welcome to the forum.

You are making strong allegations against this company.

Others report good experiences with them. Did you have an accident with the hired car or cause damage otherwise?

I hope the issue is resolved soon.

Cheers
Ricky

Hi jmateos, I don't know that company but there's always an excess in case of accident or damage & it's common practice that the rental co. will later debit your credit card for the damages (plus an office charge for the extra work). You must check the amount of the excess on the contract you signed when you rented the car.I'd mentioned excess in my post last april, as it may vary and can be very high.

Hello Ricky,
Strong is been cheated that way by them.

We had an accident, little damages, a wheel and a stripe on our car, and insignificant stripe on the other one (the other car at first time wanted to go without advice the insurance). Once in buggiba, on Raybezzina office we signed a deposit for the insurance for 500 euros (plus a unsigned commision of 15€ imposed by them for paying with Visa). They try several times with the Card saying that the operation was denied. When we came back, we saw the 500€ charge plus two more unexpected charges, we have been trying to solve the situation for 2 months. They donŽt respond, and they are lying to Atlaschoice saying that the amount of money is different than the bill that we have. They also donŽt want to give any information of the resollution by the police or the insurance about the accident.

Really a bad experience.

We are now talking with lawyers to try to resolve the issue.

Hi Djinn,

On that case, we question the company to answer about the unexpected charges, with no answer, no documentation or explaining of nothing. The charges are also the same day, and they didŽnt inform us, as we came back to the office for a substitution car.

Hi jmateus,

it sounds as if Ray Bezzina has more of a case than you. A wheel and a 'stripe' does sound like major damage. Of course I don't know what insurance option you chose with your rental contract but I'm not sure how much of a case you have.

What were the unexpected charges ?

The fact that the police was involved makes it quite straightforward for the issue to be resolved.

I hope you don't pay more to lawyers than the issue is worth.

Cheers
Ricky

Hi Ricky, Thank you for the interest.

No, there weren't major damages.
The insurance option was the base. So we had to pay 500€ waiting for the accident resolution. That's what we signed.  We never have any information of the resolution and it was first week of June.

The charges are a 250€ and another of 150€ in our credit card, no explain about them to us, neither claiming for it twice a week during this months. And they are lying to Atlaschoices where we open a case saying that the deposit was 900€.

At this point, this is not only just for the money.

Hi jmateos,

I wish you luck but nobody on the forum can really judge what is right or wrong. That will be the matter of a court.

I wish you luck with your case.

It might be a warning to others considering renting a car in Malta. I personally would not even think about it unless you are used to driving in Malta and consider yourself an experienced driver.

Cheers
Ricky

Ricky wrote:
It might be a warning to others considering renting a car in Malta. I personally would not even think about it unless you are used to driving in Malta and consider yourself an experienced driver.

I very much agree with this. Have they visited before? If not then they should spend a few days assessing the situation before thinking about driving. Do they know what road conditions to expect?
I am looking forward to NOT driving regularly when we are there.
Take them to Valletta on the bus via Sliema , they'll see then.

Hi.

Any news since the last post of this topic on last year ?

I plan to rent a small car for a bit more than one week. No more than 180€ (I'm almost sure I can make it within that budget).

Are there some good and reliable renting companies in Sliema/Gzira ?
Or would you rather advice companies at the airport ?

Any other advices / experiences to share ?
Thanks.

Try Josef car and hire services at Qwara tel +356 2157 8762
a great frendly company I ahve used them and will do so again,
in fact they are picking me up from the airport when I fly back
on the 14th, can`t be soon enough.

I suggest contacting [email protected].
He gave me a really good deal. 7 days €100 in a great little car. I extended with ease and fair price, and the excess was the best I could come across, especially being under 25 years.

jmateos]Never hire a car on RayBezzina car hire.

We won't either!! Didn't meet us at appointed time at airport and were nowhere to be found and didn't answer any phones. Half hour later we were able to contact them - very off-hand. Gave us a 'skedonk' with a left door mirror 'hanging by a thread'. Very grudgingly, after many calls, exchanged it for something a little better. Funnily enough when we handed it back and took the keys to the office at the airport, there was another couple in the same boat and we could tell them the man was in the car park!! So much for GREENMOTION service.

Please be careful with the small print (Argus, car trawler, green Motion). They require a full tank upon return although they say you can return with a full tank. Very expensive.

George Stanford wrote:

Please be careful with the small print (Argus, car trawler, green Motion). They require a full tank upon return although they say you can return with a full tank. Very expensive.

Provided they are handed over to you with a full tank at the start of the rental period, what's the problem? Pay for the fuel you use and that is usual practice with Avis.

Yep, Just booked with Hertz, pick up and return with a full tank is the norm these days.

i think many of the lesser companies supply cars with virtually empty tanks and are requiring an empty tank on return- its a bonus for them as how can anyone possibly use all the fuel... sneaky is what i call it.

AFTER 24 YEARS CONTINUOS SERVICE FROM AQUARIUS CAR HIRE I HAVE NO HESITATION IN RECOMMENDING THEM. RELIABLE, FAIR PRICED AND TOP NOTCH SERVICE. AIRPORT OR APARTMENT/HOTEL PICK UP. CALL MATTHEW ON 00356 79444958 OR OFFICE 21571186. USE MY NAME FOR BEST RATES. PROF. STEPHEN J A NEWTON

sjan wrote:

AFTER 24 YEARS CONTINUOS SERVICE FROM AQUARIUS CAR HIRE I HAVE NO HESITATION IN RECOMMENDING THEM. RELIABLE, FAIR PRICED AND TOP NOTCH SERVICE. AIRPORT OR APARTMENT/HOTEL PICK UP. CALL MATTHEW ON 00356 79444958 OR OFFICE 21571186. USE MY NAME FOR BEST RATES. PROF. STEPHEN J A NEWTON

Thanks for the advice/ advert but please, why are you shouting?

Hi sjan,

I would suggest you to recommend them in the Malta business directory and please avoid your caps lock on the forum.

Thank you,
Christine
Expat.com team

toonarmy9752 wrote:

i think many of the lesser companies supply cars with virtually empty tanks and are requiring an empty tank on return- its a bonus for them as how can anyone possibly use all the fuel... sneaky is what i call it.

............I call it something else, toon.

Never hire a car on RayBezzina/ Green Motion  car hire. We have been robbed by them on our credit cards for small scratch.

mishellp wrote:

Never hire a car on RayBezzina/ Green Motion  car hire. We have been robbed by them on our credit cards for small scratch.

That is a serious accusation. Would you care to elaborate?
My family's experiences with Green Motion, collected from the airport have all been good.
Did you have adequate insurance?

Agree, serious... I went to lawyer and we are going to court against them. Even UK main office support me , but Malta Green Motion / Ray Bezzina is hiding, really not serious company...

Have removed this post replying to 'Logan 266' as his/her posts have been removed!

Ray

I realise this is an old post, but in case anyone is thinking aboout renting a car in Malta, here's my experience / my thoughts:   We've rented a car on two of our trips to Malta so far, and for our next trip in February we've already booked one again... We always use holidayautos.de - which is the German version of holidayautos.co.uk. They pool offers from various rental companies and if you're lucky or book early, they have some very good offers. For next February we got a compact car for 125 EUR for 2 weeks (rental company: Budget), I think that's a good price. We took out extra insurance through holidayautos - so if there's any claims on part of Budget after an accident, the extra insurance will come up for (=return) the excess amount. This option cost another 55 euros, but in Malta I'd strongly advice anyone to be on the safe side - after all, even if you've got a flat tire, the rental company's insurance usually won't cover that...   

As for other issues related to renting a car, I think Malta is no better or worse than any other country, at least not any country I've been to. We've rented cars in Spain (mainland and Canaries), Italy and Austria, and Malta - usually through holidayautos, and we've never had any problems. The big plus if you rent through holidayautos is, there's someone OUTSIDE the actual rental company you can contact if there are problems...
You do need to take care when driving, of course, but then again, we do take care not to be involved in any accident (or "touch" other cars when parking, etc...) driving our own car, too...
As for the fuel - there's new "rules" now - get a half-full tank (and pay for it when you pick up the car), return with an empty tank. saves you the trouble of finding a petrol station before returning the car, but if you don't use up all the fuel, you lose... But that seems to be the same with most companies (in many countries) now.

Whether it's a good idea to drive in Malta in the first place very much depends on your driving skills, I think. In Malta (just like Southern Italy and parts of Spain) traffic rules are not necessarily taught in driving school, it seems