Did you ever had everything arranged – flights and accommodation – and still needed to rent a car? It was exactly our situation a day before leaving for Greece in mid-May. Another option was to get to the airport and rent a car there, although you never know which car you are going to get or if they have any available by the time you arrive. After several days of searching on the internet and a lot of phones to the rental agencies the conclusion was this – either the price was too expensive, or they were unavailable or not responding, etc. So it was that on Saturday morning while drinking my coffee, looking randomly through the internet pages, I came across a company I haven’t heard before. Still, I send them a request, if they had an available car for the day.
In less than a quarter of an hour I received not only a response, but the advance payment invoice for the category of car I had asked for. The total cost of the rental was a bargain compared to what I had found before. With no better alternative, I made the deal not sure if the person with whom I got into contact over the Internet will present himself with the car at the Thessaloniki airport. I was willing to risk nonetheless as the sum was so small, remaining curious as how things were going to develop.
From Thessaloniki we had to get in Hanioti, located in Kasandra Peninsula, about 90 km away, so our plan was pretty much like this: if the car was no good at least we were driving until the hotel and back to the airport, however it costs less than the taxi. If it was ok, then we could travel a bit more around the Greek towns.
The next day, there was nobody expecting us at the airport 🙁 . Let this be a teaching for the future! What did we thought? We search online, find somebody that charge us less money than everyone else, think that they are a real deal and that is it, we have a car? I started asking around if anyone knew something about the company and relaxed about the first two answers – we actually had landed 10 minutes earlier, my fault as I hadn’t checked the clock. When the time was right, our man arrived. Very politely he invited us to get into a brand new red car, so we can go to “the office” outside of the airport.
After I expressed my appreciation for his car the man stopped at the gas station, telling us that this was actually our car. I was stunned. According to him, the headquarter of which he was telling us about was the gas station where he had stopped for refill! The formalities lasted exactly 2 minutes after which he climbed into another car that had come to take him saying goodbye while arranging for our next visit: “exactly in one week I am going to see you here, with the car having a full tank of gas”. And he left the keys in my hand, with no further information. It seemed like he basically fled. Was this car stolen? Why were there no formalities, no copy after the ID cards etc. nothing? He just took the money and left.
Finally we just said: oh well, let us enjoy the day as it is, without further worrying about the way things are done in Greece. The important thing: we had a new car at our disposal for the week. From this point of view this turn out to be one of the most successful trips we ever had. I might just add that returning the car at the end of our vacation was as full of suspense as the begging of the whole story, but I’ll tell you about this next time. For further info about the rental company, how to add the car rental service in your holiday package and renting a car at a very good prices, find out more on Dream Holidays.
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