Europcar Albufeira - Marina

Great service and great people always ready to help. We'll be using Europcar a lot over the next few months and the Albufeira branch us definitely our choice!

Last week, when I showed up to get my rental car at Europcar Albufeira Marina, they refused to rent me the car saying I had a debit card instead of a credit card. Note that their website accepted the debit card and a week before I had used my debit card to rent a car from them with no issue. Long story short, they refused to rent me the car. I went home and got my credit card. By the time I got back to their office at 6:42pm, they had closed. The reservation was for 7:00pm and their office is supposed to be open until 7:00pm. They are keeping my money even though they charged my debit card to take my money and they refused to rent me the card because I was using a debit card. This is the email I sent asking for a refund that night: I am asking for a refund of the 38.60€ charged to my debit card today for a car rental reservation that your agents refused to honor. We made the booking online about a week ago and used our MB debit card. We have rented cars from Europcar before using our MB debit card with no objections and no problems from your staff. We had no idea this was a problem for you. Your online application allowed us to book and pay in advance using the MB debit card. When I arrived at your Albufeira Marina location this evening, your agent refused to accept the card - saying it is a debit card and they must have a credit card. She also refused to cancel the reservation and refund my money. I explained I had rented a car from this location about a week ago using my MB debit card with no objections. She said that didn't matter. After a couple of minutes discussion it became clear there would be no resolution so I walked back home (5 minutes away). By the way, my reservation was for 7:00pm and I arrived much earlier than that. When I got home, I tried calling your customer service line and after speaking to them for probably 10 minutes, I realized the only resolution possible was to go back to the Albufeira Marina office with a (foreign: American Express) credit card in order to complete the transaction. At this time, it was still only 6:40pm and I was still on the line with your customer service people. He put me on hold and called the Albufeira Marina location (a 5 minute walk from my house) at 6:40pm and when he got back on the line with me, he told me that they had CLOSED and so I could DRIVE TO FARO. I told him my reservation was for 7:00pm and it was still only 6:42pm and I have the credit card that he said I must present in order to complete the rental and he said sorry but they had closed. As of now, I see there has been no refund posted to my account. The failure that happened in this case was in that your people closed their office before I could return with my credit card at the appointed time. I am requesting a full refund because you did not honor the reservation by closing your office early. Their response basically said “you cancelled within 48 hours so tough”. I replied again saying I did not want to cancel and sent the paragraph above to them again. I will never rent from Europcar again – on principal.

We booked a car the day before picking up. When arriving at the location, there was no car available so we had to wait for 1,5 hours, without being notified beforehand. Eventually, we got a really good car and dropped it off at another Europcar location, which was a plus and seamless experience.

our Fiat already had problems after 100km. The engine control light came on and the car went into emergency mode, even though it was only 10,000km. We had to shorten our trip.

Sadly totally unorganized and furthermore a little unfriendly.