What is Discover Cars rental?
Discover cars, formerly known as Discover Car Hire, is an online car rental booking service that provides rental cars in over 145 countries through its network of more than 500 rental car partners. The company makes booking a rental car easy and convenient, providing customers with everything they need to make their trip a success. This is the reason that the company has maintained high ratings on Trustpilot throughout its history.
Where is Discover Cars based?
Discover Cars is based in Riga, Latvia, and have been in business since 2013. You can book a rental car through their website in more than 10,000+ locations worldwide. The company makes it easy to find the right rental car for your next trip with their 17-language website.
What type of vehicles can you hire with Discover Cars?
You can hire all sorts of vehicles with Discover Cars, from economy cars to luxury cars and everything in between. You can also find a variety of specialty vehicles like convertibles, minivans, vans, and SUVs. With so many options to choose from, you’re sure to find the perfect rental car for your next trip.
How much is car rental with Discover Cars?
The cost of a rented car with Discover Cars varies depending on your chosen vehicle, rental period, and location. For example, an economy car for a one-week rental in Los Angeles would start roughly at $183, while a luxury car for the same period would start at around $899. However, the good news is that Discover Cars offers a variety of discounts and deals that can help you save on your rental cost. You can get a free quote for your specific needs on their website.
How long can you hire cars for, with Discover Cars?
You’ll need to check the terms of the car rental providers, the partners of Discover Cars, as each partner has its own policies. The Discover Cars Company only connects customers with available providers and cannot make changes to a provider’s policies. Generally, most rental companies allow for renting periods from a single day, up to six months or more.
How is the Discover Cars customer support?
Discover Cars offers excellent customer support. The company has a team of dedicated customer service representatives who are available 24/7 to answer your questions and concerns about your rental car. You can reach them by phone, email, or live chat on their website. They are knowledgeable, friendly, and always willing to help you with all your issues.
Is Discover Cars trustworthy for car hire?
Although some recent bad reviews have created some doubts in the minds of some people before renting from Discover cars, however, the long working history of the company shows its trustworthiness. The company has also been highly rated on big platforms such as Trustpilot and ReviewCentre.
The happy customers call their service really helpful, easy to book, affordable, and good customer support. Similarly, the annoyed customers call the service not good, irresponsive customer support, non-refund of cancellation, and even not getting the rental car.
Advantages of car rental with Discover Cars?
- The following are some advantages of car rental with Discover Cars:
- Operate in 145+ countries with 10k+ locations worldwide.
- Offers a wide range of vehicles; economy, luxury, convertibles, and more.
- Excellent 24/7 customer support.
- Highly rated on Trustpilot with many happy customers.
Offers discounts and deals.
Trusted & renowned rental partners.Get a free quote on their website. Sophisticated feedback system – customers can rate & review their experience.
Welcome to our detailed Discover Car Hire Reviews. Like the name suggests, this website lets you rent a car worldwide. We have been struggling a very long time with that topic. We could not find a single car rental website doing what is is supposed to do: compare prices and lets me book a car without nasty extra charges.
Well, now we have finally tested extensively Discover Car Hire.
Update: Discover Car Hire is now Discover Cars.com – same company!
Renting a car can definitely be a much more convenient way to explore the nooks and crannies of whatever area you’re traveling around.
It is true that if you are out of the country, your accommodation hires cars for you but it is not always the case so it is good to know what options you have.
Although it can be more expensive than buses or trains, especially if you factor in fuel costs, a car gives you access to more of what a country has to offer. For me, they are particularly useful because I love hiking and exploring parks and forests, and in many cases a car is the only way to access some of them.
While traveling through Albania by bus/hitchhiking this summer, I had a conversation with a French couple that made me acutely aware of this fact.
They had rented a car and were midway through an exhaustive loop of the country. Their stories were full of descriptions of little out-of-the-way places they’d seen, and I felt like I’d just barely scratched the surface of my experience in this beautiful country. And although I had an
A lot of car rental companies can be pretty cagey about extra fees and charges though, and we here at One Week In have had some experiences with rental companies where we’ve ended up paying a lot more than expected once we showed up at the office to pick up the car.
Usually these extra costs are related to insurance, but sometimes they include things you really don’t need that the employees of rental company X push you into adding on.
We have had a really nice experience with Discover Car Rental Provider recently, and after some thorough research and comparisons of prices and insurance packages offered by other leading companies, we can say that Discover really does offer some of the best deals out there.
Discover Cars in Review
So with that said, let’s look at the pros and cons of renting a car through Discover. Then, we’ll take a look at some general things to consider and useful tips for renting a car.
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What is Discover Car Hire?
I want to start this guide with the most obvious question: What exactly is Discover Car Hire?
Discover Car Hire is basically a price comparison website for hiring a car.
That is it. Very, very simple.
It is what they do all day and night long.
Finding cars to rent has never been so easy. They can show you a vast range of cars to hire. Instead of visiting 7 different websites, it shows you the availability, prices and options for different cars. The bigger the car, the more expensive it gets. This is obvious, right?
Discover Car Hire is also more than just price comparison.
Why? Because you can buy a car insurance directly with them. This is much cheaper and avoids nasty surprises when picking up the car.
This is the main reason why we started using this company in June 2019. It is by all means our go-to page when we need to get a vehicle. Whether that is renting a car in Cyprus, in New Zealand, in the USA or anywhere. It does not matter.
Discover Cars: The Pros
- Compares many companies
- Lower cost
- Reasonable deposit
- User-Friendly website
- Fewer hidden fees
- Free cancellation up to 48 hours
- Lower cost of insurance
- Comprehensive insurance
- Compare many car rental companies
Discover Cars helps you find the lowest prices by comparing a lot of different car companies. This gives you a ton of low-budget options to choose from. Book cars on rent for a trip with Discover Cars.
If you’ve ever used Skyscanner to look for flight tickets (which we highly recommend), then you’ll be familiar with this model.
Discover is basically a Skyscanner, but for rental cars. And since you’re comparing lots of different companies, you also get to choose from lots of different cars. Another plus.
All of us are looking for affordable car hires. Hiring cars can be expensive but not until we discovered car rentals with Discover Cars. They negotiate prices for many hire cars with car hire companies to secure lower prices for their customers. Find cheap cars for rentals with Discover Cars.
Like I mentioned above, since Discover Cars compares many different companies, they’ll find you the cheapest options for wherever you plan on renting your car.
This can mean a rental car through Discover can be anywhere from $20-40/day cheaper than more recognized competitors.
We’ll get into a price breakdown with some examples a little later. It’s also important to note that prices and car availability varies depending on which country you’re in, another thing we’ll get into later in the article.
FAQ
2.3 Reasonable Deposit
If you plan on renting a car, then you’ll most likely have to pay a deposit.
The amount of the deposit will vary depending on which country you’re in and the total cost of your rental. These deposits can really vary between countries, so it’s important to be aware of this.
The great thing about Discover is that
- the deposit prices are reasonable and compare favorably to other big name car rental companies, and
- they make it very easy to see the deposit price when you choose your rental on their website.
Companies like Budget, Hertz and Avis make it quite difficult to find this information, and it can take a bit of searching to find the information. And then even if you do, sometimes these companies still don’t give a very clear answer, instead deferring to the phrase “varies by location” or some such vagueness.
2.4 User-Friendly Website
Discover’s website is super easy to use, and it gives you all the information you need about the rental costs, insurance, coverage, deposit, deductible etc.
They lay everything out plainly for you, unlike a lot of other sites we’ve used. There’s no need to squint through the fine print of Rental Terms and Conditions to find out how much you’ll actually be paying once you get to your rental car location.
Once you choose your car, you can see in the bottom left corner of the window the company providing the car, the company’s rating out of 10, and then a link to “Rental Conditions”. Click on it and something like this will pop up:
Notice that the deposit amount and deductible is written plainly right under the image of the car. In this search example, we chose four days out of Stockholm airport, which was $157 total, fully insured.
A VERY general rule that a few countries stick to is that the deposit will usually be the total cost of the rental, plus either 25% or $200, whichever is higher. So in this case that holds about true, $157 plus $200 comes to $357, just a bit higher than the ~$320 shown above.
Fewer hidden fees
One of the great results of the transparency of Discover’s website is that there are no hidden fees.
Lots of car rental companies hit you with fees you weren’t aware of when reserving the car, because their websites don’t make it obvious what the deposit will be or how much insurance will cost.
Free Cancellation up to 48 hours
This is a nice feature to be aware of in case of any sudden changes to your itinerary.
Some other rental companies like Hertz also offer this option, but a lot of them also only offer a full refund if you cancel at least 7 days before your scheduled pick-up.
Discover Cars cancellation policy is the same as the others. Discover Cars refund anytime up until 48 hours.
A good, low-cost insurance option
Discover offers a flat-rate insurance option for just 8.85€/day, no matter where you’re renting the car.
Most other companies have variable insurance costs per day, and these costs are usually a bit higher, so it’s nice to see some consistency in this regard.
Discover’s insurance coverage
Also, this full-coverage insurance option includes theft insurance, something that other companies tack on as an additional option with additional cost.
Here’s a full breakdown of Discover’s insurance coverage:
It works together with the rental car’s basic insurance, your personal car insurance or your credit card’s insurance if you have it.
Covers taxi expenses directly related to a breakdown or accident.
- It will cover your expenses up to $3,300.
- Covers lost keys or lockout fees.
- You must first pay for any damages, then ask for compensation.
- Covers repair costs, including damage to the undercarriage, wheels, tires, roof, windows, mirrors,
- locks and hubcaps. (basic damage protection usually just covers bodywork).
- Covers towing expenses up to 100 euro.
Administrative fees are covered (related to the money the company loses while the car is being repaired).
Here’s what they don’t cover. What’s not covered is pretty standard when compared to other companies:
Extras
- Personal possessions
- Damage that occurred while breaking any laws or traffic violations
- Any damage to the car’s interior
- Damages from weather events like hail or hurricanes
- How to Request Compensation
If the worst does happen, and you get into an accident (that hopefully isn’t your fault), then here’s how you request compensation:
Contact (customer_satisfaction[at]discovercars.com), and make sure you include the following documents:
- Your signed rental agreement
- Rental company’s assessment of the car’s condition when you picked it up and when you returned it
- Invoice from the rental company charging you the deductible/fees
- Receipts showing payment for the deductible
- Your Paypal or bank account details
- A detailed account of the incident (including photographs/video evidence if you have it)
- A written police report (if applicable)
This is pretty par for the course when it comes to renting a car. Always make sure you keep receipts and invoices just in case something bad happens.
Discover Cars: The Cons
So now let’s get into some of the shortcomings of Discover Cars.
It’s important to be aware that some of Discover’s pros can also be cons, and that some other cons are shared with most other car rentals, and are just consequences of the variability of renting cars in general.
- Smaller, lesser-known companies
- One day rental is almost as expensive as renting for 3 days
- Not so many deals
- Higher age threshold
1 Smaller, lesser-known companies
Because of the nature of Discover’s service, which is to find customer’s the absolute cheapest options out there, you’ll inevitably wind up looking at rental options from companies you’ve never heard of.
A certain amount of trust and peace of mind can come with choosing a well-established, well-known car company like Hertz, Avis, Enterprise or Budget.
On the other hand, these companies tend to bury fees in fine print and have their fair share of bad car rental reviews, so take that with a grain of sand.
We reached out to Discover Car Hire directly and asked about this. They told us the following:
It is an absolute truth that Discover Cars partnered with the smaller, local car rental suppliers, operating in that one country, or even city.
They often offer lower prices to get their customers.
However, as mentioned, you also find the well-known companies.
In many cases these world-known companies provide special offers, therefore Discover Car Hire offer pretty good deals for the customers. For example, Europcar, Budget, Sixt are chosen quite often.
The main idea is not to provide the cheapest option, but to provide as many options as possible, so a customer can find the most suitable one, according to his or her needs. The customer service will always be happy to assist if any help is needed at this step.
Also, they help their customers to make a choice, which is right for them, by showing partner’s rating on the website discovercars.com. Suppliers with the greatest scores have even received a Discover Cars excellence award.
This being said, that everyone can find an option for a car rental: whether the price comes first, supplier, car type or fuel policy.
So if you just need a car for hire for one day, maybe look elsewhere.
In fact, this is not really only a con of discover car hire/ discover cars. Renting a car for only 1 day is always expensive. The longer you have it, the cheaper it gets.
For example, we looked at renting a car from Munich.
While this is not a huge deal, it’s definitely something to keep in mind.
Truth be told, I do not see a reason why you would need to book a car for one day only anyways.