Whilst Traveling in Australia my partner and I hired a hire car on the 10th November 2009 through the internet company holidaycars.com. Holidaycars uses cars from larger companies such as Thrifty, Avis etc depending on availability. In our case Holiday cars had booked us with Thrifty.

Unfortunately the car was hit whilst parked in a car park, the Bull bars of 3rd party hit into the left wheel arch of our car. We were able to get the details of the driver and informed holiday cars and Thrifty immediately. We had taken out full insurance with Holiday Cars and the policy states that we will not require a separate insurance with Thrifty. The policy also states that should an accident occur the car company (Thrifty in our case) will charge us on the spot regardless of fault and Holiday Cars will reimburse the charges regardless of the liable party.

Thrifty charged us 4279.67 New Zealand Dollars on 25/11/2009. We were charged in New Zealand dollars as prior to our time in Australia we worked in New Zealand had New Zealand bank accounts from which we funded our travels. We then supplied evidence of the transaction to Holiday cars along with a detailed letter of the accident.

Holiday Cars told us it would take a maximum of 4 weeks for the reimbursement. Despite numerous telephone calls and letter writing. Holiday Cars state that Thrifty should not have charged us because it was not our fault and they are waiting a response from Thrifty as to why they charged us. In addition they argue that Thrifty has charged us too much.

We have written to them reiterating that their policy states that the hire company will charge us regardless of fault and that holidaycars should reimburse us.
Holidaycars are now stating that they are awaiting a response from the third parties insurance company who should then reimburse Thrifty, and then Thrifty should reimburse us. We are yet to have any response from either rental company. Holidaycars.com now are not responding to emails left asking about the progress of the insurance claim.

We are very frustrated with this convoluted process which was made to sound so simple in the terms and conditions. Despite my arguing that holidaycars have breeched their terms of the agreement they say that there is nothing further that can be done until the 3rd parties insurers respond.

We have lost faith in the promises that holidaycars have made to us and wonder if we will ever actually be reimbursed?