ANTHON car hire: booking from UK?

[Hotpot]

Just a quickie!

What's the experience of other forum members re the booking from the UK of of vehicles from Anthon's rental fleet??

We're making a return trip to Lanza in February (that'll be the fifth in 12 months, wow!) and whereas our most recent trips have seen us using a friend's car (because they've been in the UK whilst we were in Lanza) on this next visit we're going to have to hire.

We did attempt to sort something out online with Anthon a year or so ago, but the booking procedure was pretty clunky and seemed to involve making telephone calls from the UK to Lanza to confirm arrangements.

It still does. Other online operators do it all on online.

Oh, reason for wondering about Anthon is because Auto Reisen has turned into a tourist attraction itself.

I mentioned our lousy experience of this outfit in October 2006.

Obviously, that wasn't an isolated event: visit the airport multi-storey garage on any Thursday afternoon and you'll see the Seventh Circle of Hell in the guise of hapless families, sweating in the gloom, waiting for Auto Reisen to provide them with the car they've already spent an age queuing for at Auto Reisen's airport desk.

[Jackie H.]

I have used Anthon many times with no problems whatsoever. I normally send them an email a week or so before travel to confim my booking and that has been fine. Good service at the airport, look for their rep. holding a board up with your name on it or just walk over to the office in the car park.

Usually the car is there waiting for you and paper work done and on the road in minutes, good quality cars as well and often upgraded.

Have a great trip and enjoy another holiday on Lanza.-alright for some!;)

[Hotpot]

Hi Jackie -- many thanks for that!

I seem to recollect some of the other regulars here giving the thumbs up to Anthon.

But I was wary of this requirement that still appears on Anthon's booking form:

Please observe that no booking is valid until you have reconfirmed it per telephone, to no. 0034 928 510 219, at least 48 hours before.

If it's OK to send an email instead of hoping to get through on a long distance phone call, that's much better.

I'd never rely on a telephone conversation where something like a rental vehicle booking is concerned, there needs to be some kind of confirmation in writing.

Thanks again: I'll try your email route!

:sun

[Jackie H.]

The first time I booked with them I DID try to confirm by telephone but never got a reply-hence the email confirmation, never bothered to even try after that.

Our Ole is certainly a regular user of Anthon as well, and if it's good enough for him.........:)

[Hotpot]

'Nuff said. Ole is a font of wisdom. :trophy






That's another fiver he owes me now.

[oleoleole]

I've recently switched to Autoreisen, they're cheaper than Anthon and from what I can gather have a more comprehensive insurance.

But that queuing is a nonsense !! With Anthon they already had my details and so the paperwork was all pre-prepared, all I did was sign it, pay the cash and they handed over the key - simple !

I'm still interested to hear if anyone has ever had an accident and had to incur their insurance ?? How did it go ?

Ole

[Hotpot]

Ole:

We'd never touch Autoreisen with a barge-pole. Assuming we could stand around long enough, waiting to get near enough to use it.

Autoreisen was superb but it has progressively taken on more and more agency work so that instead of serving one customer base, it now has to serve umpteen different customer bases, a significant number of which arrive at its airport counters at the same time.

Thereafter, chaos sets in. And not only at the airport counter.

The hot, dark, sweaty ground floor car park -- ah for the days when cars were all outside, in that parking strip alongside the green shed that used to pass for an airport terminal! -- is the scene of even more chaos as those who've queued half a life-time at the airport counter now find themselves queuing for another half life-time for their car.

Which may or may not be there. And nobody in the Autoreisen hutch seems to be able to explain why it isn't.

I had wondered if my horrendous experience at the hands of these idiots a year ago was an isolated one.

It wasn't. And isn't. We're not long back from Lanza and funnily enough, on two consecutive Thursday mid-afternoons we needed to collect friends on inbound flights.

People who had arrived and had (presumably) been waiting endlessly in the queue from the baggage carousel to the AutoReisen desk must've thought themselves onto a good thing by going out the door and forming a queue at the counter in the main hall.

Some hope. All that does is create two queues, back and front, simultaneously. And so Autoreisen staff keep falling over themselves trying to process documents, make unending telephone calls, and, er, cope.

Out of interest, I popped into the Seventh Circle of Hell (the garage) to see what was going on there. The knot of weary Autoreisen customers, several with babies and buggies and small children and lots of luggage said it all.

As I said: if you want to see the tourism industry as a Dantean vision, pop along to the airport any Thursday afternoon and check out Autoreisen's airport desks (incoming baggage hall and public hall). And then walk across the road to the garage.

That Autoreisen can continue to get away with it, astonishes me: it is the worst possible introduction any first time visitor to Lanzarote could ever have.

[drew]

Originally Posted by Hotpot

it is the worst possible introduction any first time visitor to Lanzarote could ever have.

this gonna be my 1st time in lanzarote :khu

[Jackie H.]

Don't worry Drew-you will have a great time and go back for more. As long as you don't book a car with Autoreisen that is! :lol

[Hotpot]

Hi Drew --

Jackie's right -- honest!

You'll have a wonderful time (also, honest!) providing you stay well clear of Autoreisen.

It's a shame, because I was a regular Autoreisen user, and a regular endorser of their services on this forum (well, before the forum was jinxed by some East European scumbag hacker. . . so it's probably as well my earlier Autoreisen rave reviews are no longer extant.)

We're lucky in that most times we come to Lanzarote, we don't need a hire car because friends pick us up / other friends leave a car for us to use during our stay.

But we're going to use Anthon, on the basis of Jackie's experience and also oleole's -- two redoubtable members (if they'll forgive the august descriptions!) on which basis, if Anthon is good enough for them, then it's definitely good enough for us!

Have a great trip and a great time -- you will, you will: why'd you think so many of us go back to Lanza so often?

Any queries, just ask here. There's more knowledge on this forum than Einstein had. (Well, about Lanzarote, anyway. . .)


:clap

[drew]

thanks hotspot,we dont need a car for the transfares to and from airport as we are getting picked up,but i may rent 1 later when we get settled in

[Hotpot]

Bon voyage, Drew (not sure when you're going, but. . !) It's so special a small island, I'm sure you'll have a great time. . .

. . . and, you never know, you'll finish up like us, 'veteran' Lanza travellers who always went to the south of the island and thought it was great. . . and then gravitated to the centre, and thought that was better. . .

And then wound up in the north, and realised that it was the best of all!

Happy New Year!

* PS: one tip, though others here may well disagree: if you wish to have a wander around Arrecife, then try and go by bus, first time out -- we were lost so often when travelling by car that we despaired of ever figuring out our way around.

Nowadays we tend to steer (roughly) in the direction of the Grand Hotel and park in the underground car park nearby. It helps that it's the biggest thing on the skyline. It doesn't help your neck muscles though, craning to look through the top of the windscreen. . .

* PPS: the roof top lounge at the hotel is very good. We've had some of the best coffee and gateaux in the whole of Lanza there, and considering the service and location, the prices are very reasonable. Nice staff, too. It's one of our regular haunts.

[oleoleole]

Good tip about getting the bus to Arrecife.

The amount of times I've tried to get out of the place and ended up driving to the Hospital or even San Bartolome !

Ole

[ted]

Whats all the "rush"
Yes there may be a queue at the desk, (so what)
You would have queued to check in, queued to board the plane, queued to get off the plane, queued for your luggage. Just relax! The cars booked! its not going anyhere. The staff may be on the slow side, but this is how it is! your in part of "Espana". Go get a cup of coffee upstairs, do some "people" watching, its great! Then come back.
I have used Autoreisen many times, yes they are slow, yes its a bit dark in an underground? carpark, but cool. The cars are not always "new"but they do the job. Remember you are on holiday to unwind!!! Take a deep breath count to ten, and "smile"

Works for me!

[Hotpot]

I know our local Tesco is flogging off its Christmas stock at half price on one shelf, and loading up with Easter eggs on the other, but really. . .

Have you reached April 1st already, Ted?

I fly into Arrecife most often from Newcastle, so my flight time may be longer than others here as that's a Northeast outbound, not Gatwick or Stanstead. Even so.

1. Flight time, Newcastle - Arrecife: 3 hours 50 minutes. No problems.

2. Queuing time period 1, Autoreisen desk, Arrecife Airport: 55 minutes.

3. Queuing time / waiting time period 2, Autoreisen 'office', airless, lightless subterranean garage, Arrecife Airport: 1 hour 40 minutes.

That's ten minutes short of four hours to fly from the north of England to an island 60 miles off the African coast.

And then more than 50% of that equivalent time spent at Arrecife Airport on arrival.

God above, I've flown from the UK to Malaga in less time than the 2 hours 35 minutes Autoreisen needed to find / provide my promised hire car.

I'm all for being a fair and reasonable traveller.

But your attitude strikes me as indulgent to an extreme.

Posts such as yours hand out a licence to the most dysfunctional of business enterprises -- and surely, if you'll forgive the observation, being not a little patronising?

I mean, I thought the days had long gone when people talked of "it's Spain", "it's manana". Let's all be true Brits and show a stiff upper lip to Johnny Foreigner. Aw, come on. . .

Bottom line: when on the evidence of other posters here, a Lanzarote car hire company like Anthon can offer what is clearly a timely, effective, and courteous service, I see no justification at all for any defence of Autoreisen.

The way it treats its clients is inexcusable. And what it's doing to Lanzarote's image where first-time visitors are concerned is as just as bad.

:(

[Hotpot]

Originally Posted by oleoleole

Good tip about getting the bus to Arrecife.

The amount of times I've tried to get out of the place and ended up driving to the Hospital or even San Bartolome !

Ole

So it was you then, that day we left Arrecife eight times, heading for Haria and instead finishing up in semi-permanent orbit of San Bart's roundabout, in tandem with another car that looked ever more familiar. . .

;)

[oleoleole]

I swear I once got so fed up trying to find my way out I deliberately headed out to San Bartolome because I knew my way back to PDC from there ! (Anyway once you're on that San Bartolome road there's nowhere to turn off and not much opportunity to turn around - I KNOW !.)
Ole

[ted]

My experience with Autoreisen has been fine thank you!
Yours may not have been!
Am I expected to change my opinion on the basis of your "rant" shown below!
I don't think so. I make my own mind up based on personal experience.!!!

HOTPOT said
Quote
I know our local Tesco is flogging off its Christmas stock at half price on one shelf, and loading up with Easter eggs on the other, but really. ..
Have you reached April 1st already, Ted?
I'm all for being a fair and reasonable traveller.
But your attitude strikes me as indulgent to an extreme.
Posts such as yours hand out a licence to the most dysfunctional of business enterprises -- and surely, if you'll forgive the observation, being not a little patronising?
I mean, I thought the days had long gone when people talked of "it's Spain", "it's manana". Let's all be true Brits and show a stiff upper lip to Johnny Foreigner. Aw, come
Bottom line: when on the evidence of other posters here, a Lanzarote car hire company like Anthon can offer what is clearly a timely, effective, and courteous service, I see no justification at all for any defence of Autoreisen.
The way it treats its clients is inexcusable. And what it's doing to Lanzarote's image where first-time visitors are concerned is as just as bad.


Yes, you be a "true" Brit and show your stiff upper lip to Johnny Foreigner!
See how far up the queue that will get you!


"AND" I know my way out of Arricife!