Hire Cars Need to be Valeted
Since when did car hire firms allow animals to be carried in their vehicles? I’ve just returned a hire car that was full of dog hair and smelled more like a kennel.
Don’t misunderstand me. I really love animals but I don’t like having their fur all over my business suits. My family has a number of pets including a cat, dog, several fish and even a wild hedgehog that loves cat food. My family and I love animals. But when I tried to book a hire car for my family, dog and cat I was told that only certain vehicles were suitable and these weren’t available.
On further investigation I ultimately found a car hire firm that did accept pets but only in certain vehicles (estates) and the animals had to be secured behind the back seat. We were happy with this situation and understood completely.
You can probably understand how dissappointed I was by the hire car supplied by a well known car hire supplier at Heathrow. My workmates and I had booked our hire car in advance before departing from Frankfurt on an evening flight back to Heathrow. We went to the desk before collecting the car from the parking lot. When we opened the door of the car we were greeted by a warm and unpleasant doggy smell. Not nice.
We were about to go back to the desk but one of our party was impatient to get home so we hopped into the stinky car and off we went. It was when I got home that I reallised my suit was coated with fine white dog hairs.
Whoever had used that car immediately prior to us had clearly allowed a dog to roam freely on the seats and upholstery. When I contacted the car hire firm they assured me that they didn’t allow dogs in their regular saloon cars and only by prior arrangement in other cars specially adapted for animals. Someone had clearly broken their rules and they hadn’t managed to get the car valeted before we took it away. The result was a bill for having four suits cleaned.
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In future we’ll be driving to the airport and using airport parking services rather than rely on smelly hire cars. Top tip: Always make certain that you have adequate travel insurance before you go anywhere.
