Price Drop ProtectorFor me it started as a money problem. I booked a car on QEEQ for a trip to Vienna in Austria in mid September. I was getting an Opel Astra Estate automatic from Wheego and I was pretty excited. When I made the booking I was still doing my budget in my head. Tuition, rent, flight tickets, everything pushed together. I felt a bit stressed about the rental price and I kept thinking that if it went higher I would really be a broke student.
One night I was in my dorm working on homework and I saw an email that said my booking price changed. My first reaction was that I had to pay more. My chest felt tight and I blamed myself for booking too early. Then I opened it and saw that the price went down. It said that because I had Price Drop Protector they already made a new booking for me and they would return the price difference. My mood jumped from disaster to lucky in one second.
I checked the details again. I would still pick up the car in Vienna and drop off there too. The dates looked a bit adjusted by a day or so but it was still the same type of car like an Opel Astra Estate automatic with big space. I imagined my bags in the back and me just driving away. I had this thought in my head that I did not need to watch the price every day. They were watching it for me.
When I first booked I saw this service called Price Drop Protector. I did not care so much. I just thought it was not expensive and maybe it could help so I clicked it. When I saw the refund for the difference it felt like someone suddenly put extra pocket money into my wallet. My booking was in AED and the amount on the screen was clear. I started thinking that this money could cover some nicer dinners or maybe a train ticket to another city.
I was still a bit worried so I checked the new booking carefully. I was scared that with the lower price they would give me a worse car, maybe an old one or a very small one. The information showed it was still with Wheego and still an automatic car with four doors and five seats in the same group. Nothing looked downgraded. I let out a quiet sigh of relief and thought that it would be great if normal shopping in life also changed like this automatically when prices dropped.
For a moment I also worried about problems at the rental desk. I imagined reaching Vienna and the staff saying they could not find my booking because of this automatic change. So I sent a message and the customer service told me my new booking was confirmed and there was no problem. In my head I saw myself in mid September standing at the Wheego counter with my suitcase, reading out my confirmation number to the staff and getting the keys. I would probably remember the money I saved and feel pretty good.
The funny part is that I did nothing for this saving. I did not compare prices again and I did not refresh the website every day. I just made the booking and went back to my normal student life. Classes, homework, late nights in the dorm. They found the lower price and fixed it for me. Later when I talked with some classmates I told them that my car rental price dropped and I got money back. They thought I was joking at first. I showed them a screenshot and I felt a small proud feeling inside.
Now I see this kind of auto saving service in a different way. Before I thought it was just some extra thing for marketing. Now it feels more like someone is watching the market price behind the scenes while you focus on your own stuff. You stay a busy student and one day you just get a mail saying you saved money. When I drive that car in Vienna in September I think I will remember this experience of getting money back for free and feel that choosing that service was a smart move.
One-Dollar FreezeI will start with my feeling. When I came to Austria alone, the most relaxed part for me was actually the payment for the car. Before this, I always did a lot of math when I booked a car. I was afraid my card would be charged a big amount at once. This time when I booked on QEEQ I did not feel that kind of stress.
I made the booking around April. I was planning a June trip to Vienna and then driving to Salzburg. On the page I saw the One-Dollar Freeze option. I read it carefully. It said I only need to pay 1 dollar when I book, and the rest will be charged automatically before the rental starts, with no interest. I felt it was very good for me because I still needed money for flights and hotels, so I clicked confirm.
When I paid, it felt a bit unreal. My credit card bill only showed that 1 dollar. My mind felt much lighter. I did not get hit with a big charge right away and I could arrange the rest of my trip first. In the next days I even changed my plan a few times and recalculated my budget. If I had paid the full amount at the start, I might be too scared to change anything.
At the start of June I picked up the car on June 4 at 2 pm in Vienna. It was a Kia XCeed from Enterprise, automatic, four doors and five seats. I planned to drive to Salzburg. A few days before pickup I got a credit card notice and then I remembered that the rest of the money was already charged automatically. I did not need to watch the time or worry about forgetting to pay. Everything just went smoothly.
At the car rental counter I only had to follow the normal steps, show my documents and get the key. The payment part was already done earlier. There were no strange extra charges and the amount was the same as I saw when I booked, so my trust in this payment plan became very strong.
For a solo traveler like me, the biggest fear is heavy money pressure before the trip. One-Dollar Freeze, where I only pay 1 dollar first, felt like breaking that pressure into small parts. I could lock in the car first and then prepare the rest of the money slowly. I also did not need to worry about any interest.
When I think about the whole process, it was not complicated. The booking moment became very easy. Before pickup they charged the rest for me. I only needed to show up and get the car and then return it in Salzburg on June 10 at 6 pm as planned. This experience makes me want to choose this kind of small first payment plan again when I book a car in the future.
One-Dollar FreezeOn the evening when I returned the car in Vienna, I parked it and closed the door and I actually felt very relaxed. I did not worry much about money during the whole trip. A friend asked me later how I booked the car so early and then I remembered that at the beginning I used One-Dollar Freeze on QEEQ. That day I was in Korea scrolling on my phone. I saw a Citroen C4 automatic in Vienna and I liked it. I thought I needed to pay a lot at once. But on the checkout page I only had to pay 1 dollar first to lock the car. The rest of the money was charged automatically before the pick up date and I did not need to do anything. I also did not see any interest or extra fee. For an overseas visitor like me it made the pressure on my credit card much smaller. My travel plan was not fully fixed at that time so this felt safer. I could just hold the car first. One or two days before the trip I got a message that the full payment was done and the amount was the same as the price I saw before with no strange extra charge. When I arrived in Vienna and went to Dryyve to pick up the car in the morning, I only did the normal counter steps. The payment part was already finished and I did not need to worry about bills there. The whole thing felt very easy. I did not have to block a big amount on my card at once and it made my budget more flexible when I was traveling to several countries.
One-Dollar FreezeWhen I booked the car, I asked myself if it was really only one dollar first. I saw this One-Dollar Freeze on QEEQ and I did not fully trust it at the start, but it looked very nice for my budget. I planned a trip to Vienna at the end of May and I wanted a car in the size of a Peugeot 2008 because we had a lot of luggage and family with us. My travel budget was not very big and I did not want my credit card to be too full from the beginning.
When I saw that the page said I only needed to pay 1 dollar first, I stared at that number for a few seconds. I checked again that there was no extra fee. Then I pressed confirm. The bank message came and it really showed just 1 dollar. I felt a lot more relaxed and I felt like I saved myself some pressure. In the next days I did not stress much because I knew the rest of the money would be charged before the rental started. I just needed to keep enough limit on my card.
In the week before the trip I opened my booking again. All the details were still there and nothing changed with the car group or the rental company. I went back to packing and planning. Around one or two days before my flight to Vienna I got another bank message. This time it showed the remaining rental amount. I checked the number and it was the same as in my booking. There was no extra charge and no strange cost. At that moment I felt very calm because I did not need to worry about paying more money later at the counter.
When I arrived at Vienna and went to the rental counter around the time we planned, I felt quite light. The big part of the money was already taken a short time before, so I just had to show my documents and my card. The whole process felt smoother for me than paying the full amount in one shot long before the trip. It felt like I could lock the car with a small payment and then deal with the big payment closer to the trip.
For me the best part of this One-Dollar Freeze was that there was no interest. This is very important to me. I usually do not like payment plans because I am afraid of hidden fees. This time I checked my card statements many times and the total stayed the same. It was just split into two charges. I could also plan my other trip costs better in the weeks before, like hotels and flights, because the rental did not block a lot of money too early.
When I think about the whole thing, it was actually very simple. I paid 1 dollar to make the booking, the rest was charged near the pick up date, and then I went to Austria and picked up the car as planned. As an overseas visitor this type of payment gave me a nice buffer and made me feel safer. I did not spend those days before the rental worrying about a heavy credit card bill.
Dedicated customer service"Can you send the refund back to the same card I used for the deposit?" This was one of the messages I sent them after my trip. At that time I was already back in Singapore for a few days, but my mind was still replaying the night I picked up the car in Vienna.
I booked the car on QEEQ. I chose a BMW X5 from Sixt, automatic, four doors, five seats. On April 26 around 8 pm, I was alone with my suitcase, lining up at the Sixt counter in Vienna. I felt pretty excited because it was my first time driving this kind of big car in Europe. When it was my turn, the counter staff told me the car for me was not an X5 but another SUV. I was a bit confused. I checked the car and the condition first and then I just drove away, but in my heart I felt like I might have been downgraded.
The real trouble started around April 30 when I was back at the hotel and finally had time to compare the car model and prices. I felt something was not right, so I contacted customer service and explained what happened. I thought it would be very messy, but they arranged one person to follow my case. After that it was almost always the same person talking to me.
One time I was sitting in a small cafe in Vienna. It was raining outside and I checked my emails on my phone. They asked me if I could send photos of the rental agreement and the final invoice. I sat there with my drink, looking for the papers, taking photos and sending them. It felt a bit like doing homework, but it was okay because the person following my case told me clearly what they needed. I just followed the steps.
A few days passed and I was getting ready to return the car. On around May 3 in the evening, I drove the car back to the Vienna return point, close to 8 pm. The staff checked the car quickly and said everything was fine. I felt that the rental part was finished, but the downgrade question was still open, so I sent another message to ask for an update.
Later they told me they had checked with Sixt and were told the two cars were similar. I did not really accept that. I am just a normal traveler and I do not understand their car group system. I shared my feelings with customer service. They did not brush me off. They checked the prices and showed that there was a difference and then kept talking to the rental company to fight for the price gap.
After some days I got a message saying they had managed to get a partial refund for me. I was in my office in Singapore, almost off work, when I saw it. I felt a small surprise and thought all the emails and chats before were not wasted.
Then it moved to the refund method. For a while, my chat history was full of questions about which card to use and if I needed to give a bank account. I thought I would need to provide many bank details and I felt a bit tired of it. So I asked if they could just send it back to the credit card I used for the deposit at the counter. That would be the easiest for me.
What made me feel calm was that the same person kept following my case. It was not changing from one agent to another. Every time I came back and asked again, it was still the same person and they already knew my story. They then checked with the rental company and came back to ask me to confirm my name, email and country. I answered them while I was on the subway, on my sofa at home and even when I was lining up to buy lunch. I always felt that someone was still watching this case for me.
Not long after that, they told me the rental company had agreed to refund to the card used on this booking, and asked me to watch my statement. I asked again because I was afraid I mixed up the cards. The staff even checked my contract and told me which card it was by the first and last numbers. At that moment I felt quite safe. The whole thing took some time, but at least someone was holding my hand through it and I was not left alone in the middle.
When I look back now, I remember the trip itself, but I also remember this after sales experience. I was traveling alone and getting a different car model and price is not a huge disaster, but it is annoying. If nobody helped me talk to the rental company, I would probably give up that one hundred plus euro difference. The process was not very fast, but having one person follow my problem from start to finish made me feel taken care of and not like a small order that could be easily forgotten. For someone who travels alone like me, that feeling matters quite a lot.
AXA Full CoverageThat day in Vienna it was raining a bit and I was driving the nine seat car I booked on QEEQ. It was a Mercedes Vito and it felt really big and nice. I even told my friend this trip to Austria felt like an upgrade. Later I was backing up at a narrow corner and the car hit something. There was a long scratch on the side. I got scared right away and I thought the rental company would charge me a lot of money. On the return day around May 18 at noon I went to the Avis counter. The staff checked the car and then showed me some papers with several different charges. When I paid with my credit card I only saw a long number on the screen. When I changed it to my own currency in my head it felt really high. I remembered I had added AXA Full Coverage when I booked. At that time I just thought one more insurance was safer and I did not expect I would really need it. After I went back to my place I contacted their customer service and told them about the scratch and the few charges on my card. They asked me to send photos of my passport and the charge slips and so on. When I filled in my bank info it kept showing error and I felt a bit annoyed. But I did not want to just lose this money so I tried again and checked every number. After a while they reached out and asked me to confirm the total of all the charges. I added them up and told them the amount from my credit card and I also confirmed I wanted to get paid in euros. During those days I kept checking my card bill and looking at those tens of thousands of INR. It was a lot of pressure and I was afraid I would only get a small part back. Then they told me the claim was approved and the amount matched what the rental company took. I felt so much lighter in that moment. I thought this accident would ruin my Vienna trip but the car damage was all covered by AXA Full Coverage so it turned into just a scare and a lesson for me.
