Zest Car Rental - www.zestcarrental.com

I booked through Zest for the first time earlier this month because the competitive price included a free additional driver. However on collection at Salzburg airport I was charged for it. I have emailed Zest several times but am told my contract is with the rental company and not a matter for them. Whilst this may be legally correct, it is appalling customer service and I am staggered Zest did not credit me immediately. Zest continues to advertise free additional drivers which in my view is seriously misleading. Zest should seriously consider whether this aspect of its offering should be removed.

This is not a serious company.

I paid in advance the full value of the rental, summer high season in Italy, to avoid potential issues, to have my car available. It was a 2,500 usd fee.

We simply picked the standard hour to have our car available (12pm) and when we arrived there the car had been let go at 1pm, and they are not refunding me.

I had to search for and pay double this value for another car, which was almost inpossible.

And Zest still says it was my fault because we did not arrive at 12pm and that I should have paid attention to the fine print.

Do not be fooled by this company they are not serious and they are not the company renting the vehicles.

My vacations were seriously disrupted and I took a loss of 3000 euro because of them.

Date of experience: July 19, 2023

I did asked for rental agreement 6 weeks ago. I need that for the insurance people to look in to my claim. I paid for extra insurance to avoid unnecessary cost in case car get scratched or dented . I spoke with zest so many times and they still telling my to wait because they waiting for paperwork from Portugal Car4fun or something like that. I paid 350 euros for damage but despite that I paid extra for insurance they don’t care and keep sending me off. I would not recommend this car hire company. Just waisted so much of my time trying to contact them. I get no updates or nothing it is just ridiculous for customer to be treated like this. So do yourself a favour and find another provider.

Useless!!! Booking made, paid up front and included the insurance. Picked up car, no problem. 4 days later a bill for over £300 whereby Budget had charged us again for the hire car. At the airport they asked us to sign something, without explaining what it was, we then paid for the car again, plus the hideous insurance amounts, paid 90 euros for Fuel???

We didn't know any of this until we got a pdf of the bill on email, they didn't give us a paper copy so couldn't contest.

Zest will not step in to query why the amount we prepaid to them did not cover the cost of the car. So they just took our money and washed their hands with us.

Basically, joker outfit, take your money on their website which doesn't go to the actual car hire company. Save your money and go direct. Worst experience of car hire ever! And that says a lot as we do this a lot, cannot believe we have been treated like this.

Shame on you.

I have used Zest (and their previous guise 'Economy Car Hire' for many years when booking in Spain. As a broker they offer very competetive prices allow for a second driver on the booking free of charge, which is excellent. The top up insurance offered is also well priced. Ultimately they use the same car-hire firm that we have good experience of anyway (Autos-Aguierre) and this just helps with the booking.

When they really came into their own was last year when I forgot to bring the credit card that I had booked with. I realised in the airport after checking into my flight and frantically phoned them. I was dealt with via a very polite customer service operator who took my details and made an effort to understand the problem. Within 10 minutes he had called me back to say that he had dealt with the car hire firm and that they would, in this case, honour the booking through my debit card. Excellent service and put my mind at rest for the flight.

Now, it might have helped that this was something likle our 8th booking with Zest and the car hire company, so we may well have 'banked some credit' with them, but I have nothing but praise for the professional way that they dealt with our problem.

Really good service and value for money - can't ask for anything more than that.

We have used this company for 9 years without any problem and would not use any other. I recently booked car hire in Fuerteventura to collect and return from the airport then realised we could have collected it from our resort. I expected to be charged a fee for altering the booking but no. I'm sure most companies would have done so. The only problems we have ever had when collecting our vehicles have been with the local hire companies who have tried to pressurise us in to paying for extras such as their insurance when we had already paid top up insurance, trying to charge extra for a driver over an age limit when Zest cover up to 84 years of age and a company who said we would have to pay to cover breakdown of THEIR vehicle!! Don't be put off by the few bad reviews, we think they do a great job!.

We booked with Zest as their fee, whilst slightly higher than other options, included an additional driver as standard. When we arrived to collect our vehicle the local operator refused to honour this agreement unless we paid an additional fee, despite us having the full paperwork with us and showing them where it clearly stated "one additional driver free of charge".

When we got back home, Zest refused to accept any responsibility, refused to refund us any of the money we'd paid and sent us a rude email to boot.

Shocking.

We booked car easily on Zest website and cad was at our hotel as requested at 10am next day. Local rental company (Portugal) were utterly efficient and clear about local tolls etc.

We were able just to leave keys at reception at the end of the rental period.

BEST car hire ever at home or abroad. Zest were recommended to us by a family member. Will always use them in future.

Thank you Zest for making it cheap and easy!!!!

Pick up from airport in Athens went to time.

Efficient service at the rental offices.

Car was excellent quality.

Easy process returning the car and being taken back to the airport.

Highly recommended.

I used this company for the first time and won't use any other from now one. They have the best customer service ever and provided me with a great car supplier (Drive 4 Fun). I wet the car key and couldn't start it, so I gave them a call and they send help straight away. I had a flight in 2 hours and was 70km away from the airport and still menaged to be there on time! I will deffinetely use them again. Thank you Zest for the greatest car rental service ever!