Drivalia UK Reviews 

Great service

Quite the most unprofessional outfit I’ve ever dealt with, they wanted to charge me a surcharge of two days hire on a two day rental, in the end I paid £50, Had arrived 45 mins late (within their ‘59 min window to classify me as a ‘no-show,’ on aPRE-PAID RENTAL) due to sitting on the tarmac at Frankfurt, yet waited 20+ mins to be seen, previous replies to this self-same comment on this very site stated there’s a TWO hour grace period.
They didn’t even respond Zest, who I rented from, for over a month so I emailed direct, told that in peak periods grace period is one hour, in the very small print somewhere., apparently.
My point that I was there 15 mins within their one hour window, waited 27 mins to be attended to, due to inadequate staffing levels, so to the system was then a ‘no-show, was not answered.
Basically tough luck was the response.
I’ve rented all over Europe via Zest, never experienced this type of self-serving, money making behaviour.
Avoid - if at Gatwick use Sixt!!!

I had a very disappointing experience with Drivalia at Gatwick Airport.

I had prepaid my rental through EnjoyTravel and arrived at the Drivalia desk expecting to collect my vehicle. During the security deposit process, the credit card I first presented was not accepted. I then provided a valid business credit card from another bank.

Instead of offering a reasonable solution, I was told that I could only collect the vehicle if I purchased Drivalia’s own additional protection.

I had already purchased protection with my booking, so I did not consider it reasonable to be required to buy another protection product at the rental desk. I declined and therefore could not collect the vehicle.

I contacted EnjoyTravel customer service while I was at the Drivalia office, but no practical assistance was provided. I was simply advised to submit my complaint by email.

I later requested a refund from EnjoyTravel, but my request was rejected.

My complaint is not about the security deposit requirement itself. I understand that rental companies have the right to require a valid security deposit. My concern is that the only option offered to me was to purchase Drivalia’s additional protection in order to proceed with a prepaid rental.

As a result, I was unable to use the vehicle that I had already paid for and lost the entire rental.

I hope Drivalia will improve the transparency of its deposit and card acceptance policies and provide customers with fairer solutions when problems arise.
Reply: The card I presented was not a debit card; it was a Business Credit Card. The card was tested by the Drivalia representative, who confirmed that the deposit transaction could be processed successfully.

Furthermore, the solution offered by the Drivalia representative was not an option to reduce the security deposit to zero. Instead, it was an offer to purchase full coverage for the rental vehicle at an additional cost.

Manny thanks Rafał you are absolutely grate.

Raf was amazing

Car hire was booked from 5pm at the Edinburgh Airport branch .. our flight got in early and we waited on the shuttle bus for around 20mins as expected. Upon arrival at the collection point we entered along with another customer, after 5/6 minutes a staff member came out if the kitchen and advised we would be seen shortly and gave us buzzers. 2 other members of staff appeared and one make staff member served the lady in front of us as expected, the female staff member was attempting to login into the pc which again isn’t unexpected, however a 3rd customer came into the office and the female staff member spoke to them advising as soon as she could login she would be with them , at this point I asked when we would been seen as we had now been waiting for 25 minutes to be seen, she advised she would help us now and this is where the issues came to light - we gave the booking name and drivers id to the female staff member who processed this and then asked what insurance we would be taking as we hadn’t booked any, when we asked what the options where she set a page in front of us and attempted to push us to the most expensive option at £38.99 a day ontop of what we had already paid, we declined the additional insurance and at this point she advised that as we hadn’t arrived at the pick up time of 5pm our pre booked car was as released by the system and she wouldn’t be able to give us the car but could give us an alternative- we had booked a medium car (quashqui) and the alternative was a Corsa - I questioned this as we had paid for the larger vehicle and I wasn’t happy to be down graded - she became visibly annoyed by my decision to question it and advised we could have the car back we booked but for an extra charge - which I refused to pay - after some back and forth I asked for a manger to be advised one isn’t available tonight and I could take the car or leave. We proceeded with the booking and left the premises- the return process was very smooth and the guys on Monday were very helpful

i have been trying now for over 2 days to contact them, they do not answer emails or telephones it appears, I made the booking through Air France, so guess i will have to request there assistance

Very grateful service with raf. Absolutely amazing

The Oxford team were a delight to deal with and they were very helpful when we arrived. Lovely staff with a a great attitude!

RUN AWAY. THIS PLACE IS A SCAM. The conned me into paying way more for insurance than I should have paid; they sweetened the deal by giving me a discount that I later was charged for; then I was scammed at a parking lot - I have proof that dozens of people were scammed at this lot - and they ignored this and insist that I pay this fine I shouldn't have to pay. And the email they sent asking me to pay the fine just says 'UK PCN' - only when you look closely at the email address do you see it's from Drivalia and not the UK government. This company has given me such headaches, I have had to call and email dozens of times just to contest their stupid charges. They are predatory. They don't care about you, they only care about money. They are con artists. They should be ashamed of themselves. Everyone should just stop paying this company so they can disintegrate and rot in hell.

NOTE: they’re telling me below to log in and contact them through the portal but I already did and they said they couldn’t help me. And they already charged me for the ticket. They also charged me a $70+ "admin" fee a full month after the initial ripoff happened, with no warning.

Be wary of this company. They’ll confuse you and aren’t transparent; they’ll take your money in every possible way. I had a very negative experience at both Heathrow and Gatwick airports. I wouldn’t recommend them – there are better car hire companies. In the end, what seems cheap ends up costing a lot.

James was great and very helpful when I booked online

We hired our first cat ever from here. Hadn’t a clue what to expect. Receptionist ‘Heniel’ (I think this is right) was fantastic. Helped so much and made the experiences so easy and absolutely no stress.
I rang the office as we were running late and the man I talked to was brilliant.
We will definitely be hiring from here every time we visit Liverpool.

UPDATE: Drivalia's automated reply asking me to contact them via "Manage My Booking" is completely invalid. I already opened Support Ticket 3519906 46 days ago!

Unenforceable £60 admin fee & 46-day open ticket ignored after blank contract delivery (Ref: 3519906)

I hired a vehicle with Drivalia UK (Rental Ref: 3519906). Upon collecting the vehicle, the official confirmation email containing the contract terms was delivered with a blank PDF attachment. Due to this technical error on Drivalia's side, I was never provided with legible, written Terms and Conditions regarding their £60.00 PCN administration fee.

​Under the UK Consumer Rights Act 2015, penalty or admin fees contained in unprovided contract terms are legally unenforceable.

​My support ticket has now been open for 46 days with no resolution. Initially, Customer Service took 23 days to give a generic response claiming "verbal mention at the desk" was enough. After I replied with screenshot proof of the blank contract attachment, my ticket has been completely ignored for over 3 weeks.

​Meanwhile, the temporary 30-day hold granted by the PCN team is about to expire due to Customer Service's total lack of response over these 46 days.

​I am fully ready to pay the actual £35.00 council fine immediately, but I refuse to pay a £60.00 admin fee resulting from Drivalia's failure to deliver a readable contract. I request a senior manager to intervene immediately, waive this fee, and resolve this 46-day-old ticket.

Abs is absolutely fantasy and amazing. Super 10 stars services.

Very disappointing experience. Although advertised as "London Luton Airport", the Drivalia rental office is not actually at the airport and requires a shuttle bus to an off-site location some distance away. This wasn't as clear as I expected when booking. After paying over £15 for a taxi to the collection point, I discovered I couldn't collect the car because only a credit card was accepted (a requirement I later found in the ‘voucher’ rather than being prominently highlighted during the booking process). I then had to pay another £15 for a taxi home, leaving me out of pocket for both taxis and the cost of a car I never drove. While I accept the credit card requirement was included in the terms, the overall experience was frustrating, inconvenient and unnecessarily expensive. If you're booking from Luton Airport, be aware that this is an off-airport location and make sure you have a credit card before you travel.

James was very helpful and responded quickly to sort out my booking

It was a great experience with bobby from the liverpool branch very helpful and informative