Why do Car Rental Brokers appear to be so cheap,

and how realistic are those dumping rates?
When you are looking for a rental car in Crete, you will find many car rental brokers who show you exactly what you want to see: very low rates compared to the official price lists of the rent a car companies on the scene.
Why can they do this?
Because they do not run their own rent a car company. They just publish some websites and try to collect a very big number of reservations in order to make profit from sales commissions.
Of course they do not care about customer service at all. They only care about high volume of bookings.
Those very low rates are the only and best way to attract many customers and to collect reservations. But unfortunately, those very low rates are not the final prices. In their websites the brokers manage to hide additional insurances as well as extra costs for many other hidden items.

How do they do this?
Initially, car rental brokers show you a very low rate in order to attract your attention, and to make you proceed with a reservation.
The next step is to make you pay now for the very low rate before price goes up. As soon as you have reserved the low rate, thinking that this is the going rate, you feel secure with your instant email reservation that you have gotten a great deal.

The third step is actually upon receiving the car from the airport where you realize that you have to buy additional insurances on the spot when you pick up your car, e.g.

Damage Excess Waiver insurance,

Tires and Under-body,

Windshiled, Glass and mirrors Breakage etc

If you refuse to buy any additional insurance, companies reserve a certain amount of money (sometimes up to 3,000 Euros) as a Security Deposit on your credit card, no questions asked. If you refuse then the local car rental company states that your reservation with the car rental broker is void. The broker’s partner in this game, the rent a car company which executes the reservation and delivers the car to you, will look forward to even the smallest scratch that you might cause, in order to charge you a high compensation amount.

Poor quality of cars
Unfortunately, the rent a car companies who cooperate with brokers will quite often “push” their older and cheaper cars to those customers who booked that way, and will reserve their newer cars for their own regular customers.

Poor service and customer care
Please do not expect that they would deliver your car to your hotel. In most cases you will have to take a taxi and spend a lot of money and time when searching for the office of the rent a car company which accepted the broker’s reservation.
If you should encounter a technical problem with your car and need to have it replaced, they will refuse to come to the place and change it there. Instead, they will tell you to bring the car to their station, no matter how far away it is.

Our opinion
The rent a car companies on the scene, such as www.orion-rentals.com deal with their customers in a clear and professional way. We know you, we care about you, and we want you to return to us time and time again. We mainly know that your satisfaction is our best way of advertising and our ratings on all platforms are here to show just that.
Our logo stands for complete insurance, service quality, clear transactions and customer care. Our priority is to offer you the best possible service at the best possible rates. Thats our aim and we work hard day by day to achieve that

Our advice is …

do not trust extremely low car rental rates such as car rental brokers publish them in the internet. Most cases, there are negative surprises hidden in those offers.