In reply to W Paiuker's letter ‘Friendly service with a yes' in last week's Weekend Sun, my experience has been 100 per cent the opposite.
My wife and I have travelled many times through Britain using rental cars from Avis, Hertz and Budget. Every time we've had excellent service and have been upgraded. We travel with a debit card with pound sterling and a visa. The visa card is needed for car rental in case you're unable to return the car with a full tank.
This year, for the first time we used Europcar. We booked early in New Zealand via our travel agent and paid for two fully-insured one-way rentals from Manchester Airport and Newcastle upon Tyne, both with two drivers.
Arriving at Manchester they wouldn't supply a car unless we re-insured it, paid the one-way rental and second driver supplement for a second time. We decided this was cheaper than walking away.
We finally agreed; then had to stand for 1.5 hours with no cars available in the class booked, but the car yard was full.
We were told it could be hours before a car was available. We found none were returning that day, in that class.
I suggested an upgrade but was told it is company policy not to give upgrades. The assitant got a sister company's cars switched over to Europcar to get us away.
The second rental again caused grief, and after a heated discussion we had to again forgo two drivers and a one-way rental supplement.
Back in New Zealand we found Europcar UK had withdrawn more money from our account.
The matter was taken up by our travel agent and the Europcar UK company again withdrew money out of our account rather than credit us, as requested. It is now six months and we're still owed more than $1000 by Europcar UK.
My recommendation to anyone travelling to the UK, is sidestep the Europcar.

E Stockley, Pyes Pa.