Hyrbilar på Heraklion N. Kazantzakis Airport flygplats

Pushy & Rude

Minus: Lady checking us in was pushy and rude. The car’s power steering belt was loose and would often squeak loudly

Avoid this Europcar office

Minus: Avoid this Europcar office. Like a previous reviewer, they also gave me the hard sell on the insurance (when I already had my own coverage). As for the car, they supposedly gave me an upgrade to a larger one (I actually deliberately requested a smaller car for the narrow roads of Crete and I explained that to them). The larger car turned out to be a total mess. The car already had scrapes and scratches all over, the rubber moulding around the driver's side door was falling out, the light on the passenger door was falling out, and after driving around 25km the check engine light came on with a message to get the engine serviced. When I returned it at night-time, they went over the car in detail with a flashlight and blamed me for one of the scratches which was already there (among the many scrapes). I don't think they gave me the "upgrade" out of kindness ...

The worst rental service I ever encountered

Minus: DO NOT RENT FROM EUROPCAR IN CRETE!! EVER! Upon arrival to rent the car, the representative wanted to sell us their own insurance for the car, at 220 EUR. As I already purchased insurance from Kayak, I informed the representative that I don't need their insurance. He started arguing on this, and informed that that I will need to pay 2500 EUR deposit for the car in this case, because they don't recognize the insurance I bought, even though I showed him all the documents, and as far as he is concerned I have no insurance, and therefore I need to deposit 2500 EUR. After some back and forth discussions, in which he continued to try to force me to buy their insurance, which I refused, I finally agreed to deposit 2500 EUR. Then upon checking back, he said that he can't accept that, and now he needs 4000 EUR for the deposit. At this point I was very upset, and didn't agree to go along with it. Then the representative told me that in this case they don't want to rent the car to me at all. Without any choice, I agreed to pay their 220 EUR for the insurance, paying double for insurance, but then the representative continued on the same stand and didn't want to rent the car to me. He used additional representatives over the phone and others to convince me that suddenly they don't have this car available for me, and used some lame excuse saying that I was late to the counter for more than an hour (because a delay in the flight). Eventually I couldn't continue to rent the car there. I went to other car rentals, one by one, and with luck Avis had the car that I needed for the duration for my vacation. I ended up paying almost 400 EUR more for the rental, and of course the insurance I bought from Kayak was unused. This was a terrible experience. My family had to wait for 2 hours until this issue was resolved, we missed lunch at the hotel, had a very bad start to our vacation, and only with luck we found the car we needed. The horrible representative's name is Anthony. I wouldn't recommend anyone to use Europcar in Crete at all. They provided the worst service possible.

Absolutely terrible

Plus: Nothing

Minus: Upon arrival I tried to pick up my rental. The lady working the Europcar desk told me that since I did not have an “international drivers license” I was not allowed to rent a car from Europcar. Absolutely at NO TIME was I ever informed of this requirement. I’ve traveled to many countries and have never even heard of an “international drivers license.” Completely insane. Also, it was 11 PM and we were 2.5 hours away from our hotel. She did not care at all. Fortunately I was able to walk to enterprise and easily rent a car without an “international drivers license.” If I didn’t know any better I’d say she chose not to rent a car to me once she found out I was American. Never will try to rent from this pathetic company again.

International driver's license

Plus: Staff was friendly and apologetic about this new enforcement issue

Minus: Apparently, in greece now the government is pushing for international driver's license before rental. Never needed it before so, maybe large highlighted warning notices should be displayed when renting on your site.