Renta de autos en Brasilia

Too Many Variables with Car Rentals in Brazil

Ventajas: The car was available when needed, had a/c and power front windows. Returning the car was (luckily) uneventful.

Desventajas: 1) Lengthy paperwork and bureaucracy to get the car: after a long flight and the car reservation done two months in advance, it took approx. 35 min for the paperwork alone to get done by the front desk. Have to say though this was somewhat expected since in Brazil companies try always to overwhelm customers in a miríade of bureaucratic maneuvers. 2) Pre-authorizing my credit card in R$9,000 (+- U$ 3,000): I always get insurance on car rentals, primarily with the rental company however AVIS was charging an absurd amount for the term, which forced me to look for alternatives which brought me to Allianz for a fraction of what Avis quoted and better terms. Here are the numbers: Car Rental: R$ 497; Avis Insurance: R$ 514; Allianz Insurance: R$ 210. To help even more, I rented the car with my Visa Infinity, which also included insurance at no extra charge - so that I had double protection. 3) Taking Possession of the Car: the car was very small, had a number of dents and scratches and the explicit threat of R$250 of extra charges if the interior of the car had signs of excessive dirt, however there was no clear definition of "excessive dirt" in any of the paperwork signed In summary, the car was rented as part of purchasing air tickets at Kayak website, in which I thought would have helped with all the bureaucratic process Brazilian companies live by, to my surprise it did not help. I may decide for another company next time as I got quite used with the easy of renting and returning cars in Canada, US and Europe.

Hidden fees all around

Desventajas: I asked if i could use my insurance policy and they said if i did i would have to put a $4000 deposit down for the car, then when i did get insurance, they still had me do a $3000 block on my card. Absolutely absurd that this was not mentioned at the time of booking.

Honorarios ocultos por todos lados

Desventajas: Pregunté si podía usar mi póliza de seguro y me dijeron que si lo hubiera hecho tendría que poner un depósito de $4000 para el coche, entonces cuando me aseguraron, todavía me tuvieron que hacer un bloque de $3000 en mi tarjeta. Es absolutamente absurdo que esto no se haya mencionado en el momento de hacer la reserva.