Alicante: Car Rental (No Credit Card No Deposit)

Alicante - car rental

Thanks to the high tourist traffic in Alicante, you can rent a car easily and relatively cheaply. Most visitors willingly use rental services to see nearby attractions. There is a lot of competition from rental companies. This is mainly visible in the off-season, when rental prices drop. A radical drop in prices is visible already at the beginning of September. Off-peak prices are lower than on-peak by even more than 50% (40% is practically the standard).
The price peak is in July and August.

I definitely recommend the car rental option without the need to have a credit card and make a deposit on the card. They have a fully insured car, so you don't have to worry about whether someone will scratch your car in the parking lot or knock on the door, making a small dent. With full insurance, such problems do not concern you at all, because they are covered by your insurance. If you have a car in the ALL INCLUSIVE option, you can return the car to the rental company recommended below, even at night, when the rental company is closed :) Contrary to appearances, this is a very important and convenient option, which I used myself. It is enough that your return flight is in the morning (e.g. at 8:00), so you have to be at the airport at 6:00, and the rental companies do not open until 7:00. How to return the car then?
The method is simple and convenient, and you will find the answer below, in the second part of the entry.

Proven rental - cheap and safe

The choice of rental companies operating in Alicante is large. Virtually all network rentals and several smaller ones operate here. However, a wide selection and competition do not guarantee that you will easily find a cheap, good and safe offer. Rentals do not have any reason to compete for a client in a special way, because the number of people willing to rent a car coming to Alicante is large enough for customers to be enough for all rental companies.
Fortunately, there is a branch in Alicante of one company I know very well, whose offer basically solves the problem of finding an attractive offer at a great price. This Wiber - [click].
I have previously used a car from this rental company in other branches (e.g. in Majorca and Valencia). Then I described it, and after a short time, comments from readers who took advantage of my recommendation began to appear under the entry. Needless to say, they only confirm my own experiences.
More details can be found under the entry: Majorca – car rental without credit card and deposit

An important thing to mention

In the case of Wiber, it is not possible to collect the keys at the airport. They simply don't have a position there. Probably due to the high cost of maintaining such a stand in the airport terminal (this translates directly into the price of car rental). The key and car collection point is approximately 3 km from the airport. However, this is not an inconvenience, because every 10-15 minutes there is a free shuttle between the airport and the rental office. bus with the Wiber logo, which takes newcomers renting a car from the airport to the rental company and takes people passing the car from the rental company to the airport. Fast and convenient.
All you need to do is provide your flight number when renting (this option is available in the rental form), and the rental company will check what time you will arrive, even if your flight is delayed. So you don't have to worry about being late somewhere. The Wiber bus driver has a list of passengers for whom he is to wait at the appropriate time and before he leaves he checks by name whether everyone has arrived. In practice, it works really great.

What does Wiber offer?

Wiber offers two rental options:
- ALL INCLUSIVE (I recommend buying this option exactly)
- BASIC (very cheap, but without the necessary amenities so I do not recommend this option)

Options ALL INCLUSIVE in one sentence you can put it like this: you can rent a car from FULL insurance, ZERO own contribution (your responsibility is 0 Euro), with ZERO deposit (the loan does not block any funds) and WITHOUT CARD credit.
In fact, if you pay online in advance (for this there is an additional discount), you will not need any card when renting a car. Nobody will ask for any card! All you need is your ID card (or passport) and driving license. Cool thing!

Option BASIC (significantly cheaper than ALL INCLUSIVE, but I do not recommend) it takes into account your responsibility for any damage in the event of a road collision or theft - 700 Euro, and to borrow you need a credit card on which the rental company will deposit a deposit of 700 Euro. I mention this clearly to avoid surprises when picking up the car.
I know that the price of the BASIC option due to the low price is very tempting, but in the Wiber the ALL ICLUSIVE option (including all amenities) costs as much as in some rentals the equivalent of the BASIC option (without amenities).

Where to find the best offer?

You can rent a car from Wber in two ways:
- directly on the website Wibera - [click]
– on price comparison websites, e.g. DiscoverCars - [click]

You may be a bit surprised by the fact that on a price comparison website it is usually slightly cheaper than directly on the rental company's website. However, if you think about it more carefully, it is natural. A price comparator most often signs permanent contracts with rental companies, guaranteeing an appropriate discount from the official prices of the rental company. Thanks to this, the prices on the search engine's website may be slightly lower than the official prices of the rental company. Such a policy justifies the existence of a search engine and allows it to effectively mediate sales, from which it earns money without inflating prices.

There are more comparators, but…

I have been renting cars for over a dozen years and I have been observing this market for the same amount of time. My feeling that people on vacation want to feel safe and prefer to rent a car with full insurance was not wrong. This is an extremely important observation because it has a key impact on how we search for and choose the best tools. In my opinion, the best two comparators are: the one mentioned earlier DiscoverCars and Rentalcars, the first of which is my absolute favorite. Why? I've explained this in the short characterization below.
So, do your main search in Discover Cars. You can search in the second search engine to verify that the offer from Discover Cars is actually the best.

Discover Cars - [click]

Comparison Discover Cars pays great attention to having as many local companies as possible. It's just great in that regard! Besides, it has a huge database of global companies within it. It is a great tool thanks to which you can immediately compare local prices with the prices of the largest market players. Here, sometimes (if you're lucky) you'll come across temporary price promotions that will save you a lot of money. Discover Cars it is a database that must be searched.

Rentalcars - [click]

Rentalcars is the world's largest database of car rental offers. Number 1 in the world for years. However, it focuses mainly on the largest and most extensive car rental networks, so there is often a lack of offers from small, local companies. However, it is always worth checking if some giant has not decided to make a promotion.

Other search engines and comparison engines

On the Internet you will find many other search engines and car price comparison engines. I have been observing them for years (because I have been renting cars in various places for many years). Searching most of them does not add any new quality to the search results, and often produces the same result as the pages suggested above. Why? Because they are only copies of the biggest and best search engines. The largest market players make their databases available to other parties electronically (using the so-called API key) and new pages are created that actually search the same database. It is obvious that you will not get any better and more interesting offers from them. You will get exactly the same result.
Therefore, searching for copies of the same databases does not make sense.

How to look for good offers on a comparison site?

At the beginning I assumed that the guide would be very condensed. I will try to reduce the search process to a few simple steps, thanks to which you will be able to quickly filter offers, selecting only the most interesting ones.

Instructions for renting a car without a deposit or credit card

Step 1 – entering data into the comparison engine

go to the website Discover Cars - [click], fill out the form specifying the place of pickup of the car (1) collection date (2) and the date of return of the car (3) and start searching (4)

Step 2 – first search result

After a while, you will receive the first search result, but this result is not satisfactory for now. It will look something like the pictures below. For now, I'll use this view to describe to you the layout of key elements on the search results screen.
The most important thing is to set the appropriate language (2) (the website supports several languages, including Polish), currency (1) and the location of the filter area (3). Filters are our key to success!
For your convenience, here are screenshots from your computer and phone.

Step 3 – (the most important) install the filter

Now it's time for the most important step: installing the filter! In the area where all the filters are located, search for the "Refundable deposit" section and check the "No deposit required" option.

If this option is unavailable, it means that there are no more cars available in the no-deposit version and you need to choose the smallest deposit available in the filter or look elsewhere (I will tell you where later in the text).

Step 4 – filtered result

After selecting the appropriate filter, the search result will be updated. The offers will be arranged from the cheapest to the top of the results list.
At the top of my list was an offer that fully suited me. 5-day rental with full insurance and no credit card for EUR 146. I'll take it!

Other offers, similar to Wiber - be vigilant!

When searching the Rentalcars offer database, you can find offers almost identical to the Wiber offer, and at the same time slightly cheaper. By the way writing this entry I just found one. See the picture below.

The offer is PLN 20 cheaper than the Wiber offer and contains almost identical entries in the frame Special offer. Isn't it better to take advantage of this particular offer? It seems so. That it's worth it. But before you start ordering, you should click the "OK Rent a Car rental conditions"(In the picture above it is pointed by a red arrow). A window will open as in the image below, where you must click "Deposits, Own contribution and Collateral".

Then a window will open in which you will find detailed information, among others about the deposit. You can see it in the picture below.
From the information it is clear that when renting in this company a deposit of 250 Euro is collected. So you will need a credit card to rent a car.
If you thought about searching offers, you would rent a car smarter for less money ... then you would have an unpleasant surprise waiting for you after arriving at the airport 🙂

I rented a car from Wiber. What to do after arriving in Alicante?

After arriving and picking up your luggage, look for the elevator and go downstairs (-2) minus 2 terminal. At the -2 level, look for exit and exit outside the terminal. Immediately after leaving, turn left and walk 50 meters ahead.
A Wiber bus will be waiting for you here (at one of the parking spaces: number from 1 to 5), or if it is not there yet, it will drive up in a few minutes.
The path is shown in the picture below.

Car pickup and return times

You can pick up and return your car in Wiber's office within hours 7.00 – 23.00.

GPS coordinates of the Wiber office:
38°17’18.5″N 0°34’54.1″W
38.288465, -0.581685 - click and route

If you have a rented car as an option ALL INCLUSIVE it is also possible to return the car at night outside office opening hours, i.e. between January 23.01 and 6.59:XNUMX in the morning. Then you need to go to the parking lot: EcoParking Alicante Ctra Aeropuerto Torrellano, CV852, Km 0.4, 03320, Torrellano and here you will return the car.

GPS coordinates of the car park for the night return of the car:
38°17’26.4″N 0°34’06.8″W
38.290666, -0.568561 - click and route

Some important concepts related to car rental

Below you will find some basic information that you should read before renting. They mainly concern the scope of insurance and liability you may incur when renting. The rental options I have proposed above basically limit your liability to zero, but I believe that what I have entered below must be read at least once. If you need to, you can always look here again.

What is a credit card deposit?

deposit is the amount that the rental company blocks on the credit card. This amount does not disappear from your card. It's still there, but is not usable.

Example:
Suppose you have a credit card with a PLN 3000 limit. You rent a car from the rental company, and in the conditions of the rental there is information about the deposit in the amount of 500 EUR. You pick up the car and the rental company will deposit a deposit on the card, in accordance with the EUR 500 contract. Your card still has 3000 PLN but 500 EUR * 4,3 = 2 100 PLN is blocked and as long as the blockade is not removed, you cannot use these funds. PLN 900 is available to you.

If you had a plan to pay with the same card for a hotel that costs PLN 1500, for example will not succeed. The deposit will be removed at the earliest about 24 hours after the return of the car, and often it takes even more than a week. It is worth remembering and it is best to pay for other obligations to have a different (debit) penalty or a correspondingly higher limit on your credit card.

What is the deposit on the credit card for?

In this way, rental companies protect themselves against dishonest customers. If the customer does not fulfill the terms of the contract, the costs associated with it rental deducts from the deposit. Suppose you are 8 hours late with returning the car. The agreement provides for an additional fee. The rental company may charge a fee from the deposit regardless of your will.
Another example: you picked up the car with a full tank of gas and returned it with an empty one. The rental charges the value of full refueling and the additional service cost. It now comes out more or less as if a liter of fuel cost 2 EUR. So e.g. the 50 L * 2 EUR / L = 100 EUR fuel tank. That much more or less disappears from the deposit. Examples can be multiplied (scratches on the car, broken mirror, broken glass, damaged upholstery, etc.).

Own contribution and car insurance

In addition to the deposit, which is blocked directly on your credit card, renting a car involves taking on yourself liabilities with so-called own contribution.

Own contribution applies to:
- destruction or damage to the car
- car theft

Each rental has its own amount of own contribution. Separately for destruction and separately for car theft.
This is the cost that you agree to pay the maximum if one of the above events occurs.
The assumption is that if the costs resulting from the removal of damage are greater than the own contribution you assumed in the contract, you are only liable up to the amount of your own contribution, and the remaining costs are covered by insurance.
Currently, practically all rentals include the cost of this insurance in basic vehicle price (the cheapest one you see on the throne). This insurance is mandatory and applies to all rented vehicles.

Vehicle damage insurance - CDW

This is it basic insuranceto which the vehicle is covered (often on the website of the rental company is called Full Insurance, which can be misleading, I feel allergic, it is common practice). The practice of calling basic insurance full is probably intended to suggest to the customer that at a similar price he is purchasing a better insurance package. Then the offer seems more attractive, but in fact it is not. So let's check if the insurance called full insurance is insurance CDW or actually full (SCDW - about which I will write a little below).
I did not find an offer where the insurance would be subject to a surcharge. Everywhere it was at the basic price of the vehicle.
CDW is an abbreviation of the English name Collision Damage Waiver. Having this insurance limits your liability for damage to the amount of your own contribution.
However, if it wasn't too colorful, it would be from this insurance are off the most common: windows, tires and chassis. There may be more exclusions. This means that if, for example, during a collision the damage touched the elements that are excluded from insurance, then for their repair you will pay extra.
Of course, if the event was not your fault and you have a police report for it, then the rental company he has no right to deduct any money. Then the offender pays.

IMPORTANT!
If you have been driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs, no insurance works. You pay the full amount of repair costs.

Theft insurance - TP

It is an insurance which in the event of the theft of a vehicle limits your financial liability to the amount of your own contribution.
The name of the insurance is short for the English version Theft Waiver.
The cost of this insurance is included in basic vehicle rental price.
I did not find an offer where the insurance would be subject to a surcharge. Everywhere it was at the basic price of the vehicle.

Full damage insurance - SCDW

This type of insurance totally or partially bear your responsibility for car damage and that is real full damage insurance.
The name comes from the English version: Super Collision Damage Waiver.
In most cases, your liability after purchasing this insurance is reduced to zero, less often to a symbolic amount of around 100 - 500 EUR (depending on the brand and price of the new vehicle).
Rentals, which basic insurance is called incorrectly (or intentionally) full, are called this type of insurance: All Inclisive, Super, All Protection ... etc.
When booking on the site Rentalcars, you can buy full insurance with every rental SCDW. However, you should be aware that this is the insurance you buy in Rentalcars, not at the target rental company. What does it mean? This means that if there is damage or theft to the car, the rental will download from your account the amount up to the amount of own contribution, and for the return of this amount within the possessed you must apply to Rentalcars.
If you want to take out full insurance SCDW directly in the rental, you have to do it on site, when renting. You will then avoid any possible withdrawal of your own deposit from your account and claiming a refund from the insurer. Unfortunately, most rental companies even on their own websites do not allow you to buy this insurance online and you have to do it on the spot when picking up the car. For this rental prices through Rentalcars are lower than directly on the rental site, so anyway it's profitable make a basic booking through Rentalcars.
I checked the cost of buying full SCDW insurance at several rental companies. On average, it is EUR 30 / day for basic car models.

Travel Insurance - PAI

Often, when renting, insurance for people traveling with a rented car is also offered. It has nothing to do with the car itself, it only applies to people. If you buy insurance for yourself before traveling, you do not need it.
The abbreviation comes from the English name: Personal Accident Insurance.
This insurance is often included in the package with SCDW.

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