How we Work
Updated 15th December 2023
Some of the words you’ll see have very specific meanings, so please check out the ‘Rentalcars.com dictionary’ in our Terms of Service. When you book a Rental, Booking.com Transport Limited provides and is responsible for the Platform – but not the Travel Experience itself (see B below). Booking.com Transport Limited is a company registered in England and Wales (company number: 05179829; registered office: 6 Goods Yard Street, Manchester, M3 3BG, United Kingdom).
We make it easy for you to compare Bookings from many different car rental companies. The information on our Platform is based on what Service Providers tell us. We do our best to keep things up to date at all times.
Our Platform tells you how many Rentals you can book through us worldwide - and our search results page tells you how many of them might be right for you, based on what you’ve told us.
When you book your car, you enter into a contract with us: we’re agreeing to arrange and manage* your Booking.
When you sign your Rental Agreement at the counter, you enter into a contract with the rental company: they’re agreeing to provide the car. You’ll already have seen and accepted all the key terms (while you were booking the car).
* We’re here to try to help you if you need to change or cancel your Booking, or if you have any questions – before, during or after your Rental.
Every rental company on our Platform is a trusted partner, who passed all our tests before we started working with them. Only Service Providers that have a contractual relationship with us will be displayed on our Platform. However, they may offer Travel Experiences outside our Platform as well (so what they offer on our Platform may not be exhaustive).
We even have a specialist team that visits rental companies before they appear on our Platform.
All Service Providers on our Platform are professional traders.
We make money when we find you your Rental. There are two ways we do this:
- we agree a commission with the rental company for our services; or
- we agree the net rate with the rental company and apply our own mark-up.
Either way, we offer our customers a lot of choice at competitive prices. Plus, our Platform is free for you to use.
How Rentalcars.com uses recommendation systems
We use recommendation systems to select and/or rank the information on our Platform to help you discover Travel Experiences we think you’ll like. For example, when you visit our landing page, you’ll find a number of recommendation systems, including:
Connecting you to the biggest brands in car rental. Car rental companies with the most Bookings.
Our search results are also a recommendation system. In fact, they’re the recommendation system that our customers use the most, so please check out ‘Our default ranking and sorting options’ below.
All the recommendation systems we use provide recommendations based on one or more of the following factors:
- What you tell us in the search form: location, dates, etc.
- Any information we’ve gathered based on how you interact with our Platform: your past searches on our Platform, what country you’re in while browsing, etc.
- The performance of different Service Providers.
To make it as easy as possible for you to find and book a car, each factor can be more (or less) important in different cases, depending on what we think is most likely to produce a list of cars you may want to book.
Our default ranking and sorting options
Our search results show all the car rental Bookings that match your search.
When you first see your search results, they’ll be sorted (‘ordered’) by ‘Recommended’:
- Recommended (default ranking). We know what really matters to someone who’s renting a car. So, at the top of our search results you’ll find the cars we think you’ll like, based on an ever-changing algorithm that weighs up all kinds of factors (price, ratings, size, profit, car specs and more).
The relative importance of each of these factors changes all the time, to make sure we’re recommending the most suitable cars.
Many of the above factors help our recommendation system decide which cars might be the most appealing and relevant to you. Some play a small role in that decision, while others play a big role -- and the importance of each factor can change, depending on the features of each car, and on how you and other people use our Platform.
For example, a car’s click-through rate and number of bookings often play a large role in the decisions. That's because they're a direct reflection of the car’s overall appeal, and how satisfied our customers tend to be when they get more details about it.
A high click-through rate usually means that the car makes a good first impression on our Platform (e.g. through price, pick-up location, or rental company), and getting a lot of bookings indicates that many people find it really does meet their requirements.
But other factors play a role as well. For example, we might give preference to cars from rental companies that offer versatile, user-friendly payment policies. After all, these factors suggest that these rental companies understand how important service and convenience are to our customers.
If you would prefer us not to prioritise cars based on the factors mentioned above, you can sort your results in other ways, such as:
- Price (lowest first). The results are displayed in price order with the cheapest option first... nice and simple.
- Rating. This is the one that our customers really control: cars are ranked by their customer rating, with the highest first. Those ratings come straight from the ’welcome home survey’ that we send everyone after their rental, asking them to give their rental company marks out of 10 in the most important areas (helpful staff, the car’s condition, value for money, etc.)*.
- Distance. The results are displayed in order of distance from the location you searched for.
If you choose ‘Price (lowest first)’ or ‘Rating’, the factors described in ‘Recommended’ will still influence things. For instance, those factors might act as secondary ‘tiebreakers’ between two or more cars that would otherwise appear in the same spot. However, the ‘Recommended’ factors are purely secondary - because they’re only used where we need to decide which of two cars to put first.
And whichever sorting option you choose, you’ll be able to use filters to narrow down your results.
After your Rental, you’ll be asked to leave a review, which may then be:
- uploaded to our Platform to help other customers make the right choice for them*
- used for marketing purposes (on our Platform, on social media, in newsletters, etc.)*
- shared with your rental company to help them (and us) provide an even better service**.
We publish every consumer review we receive, whether positive or negative, unless it breaches our Content Standards and Guidelines. When there are multiple reviews, we’ll show the most recent ones at the top. Please note that on our app, we only show scores and not comments. * We wouldn’t use your full name or your address. ** To help the rental company improve, we would need to tell them which Rental the review is about.
The rates displayed on our Platform are set by the Service Providers or by us - but we may finance rewards or other benefits out of our own pocket.
When you make a Booking, you agree to pay the cost of the Travel Experience itself and any other charges that may apply (e.g. for any extras, insurance or taxes). Taxes and fees may vary for different reasons, such as the Service Provider’s location, the pick-up location or what you’re planning to do with your Rental. The price description tells you what taxes (if any) are included. You’ll be able to find more information about the price while you’re booking.
Our Platform provides descriptions of any equipment that Service Providers offer (based on what they tell us). It also tells you how much they’ll cost.
Any currency conversion is for information purposes only; actual rates may vary.
When you book a Rental on our Platform, Rentalcars.com will organise your payment. For details, check out ‘Payment’ (A7) in our Terms of Service.
If you have any questions, or something doesn’t go according to plan, just Contact Us. If it’s about something that happened during your Rental, we’ll be able to help you more quickly if you provide:
- your Booking reference number, and the email address you used when you booked your car
- a summary of the issue, including how you’d like us to help you
- details of anything you’ve been charged
- any supporting documents (bank statement, rental agreement, final invoice, damage documentation, photos, boarding pass, receipts, etc.).
If you do that, one of our agents will be in touch as soon as possible. They might need to ask you for some more details. Whatever the issue, we will do what we can to help you. For more information, check out ‘What if something goes wrong?’ (A13) and ‘Applicable law and forum’ (A17) in our Terms of Service.