Madrid - Car Rental
 

Hi - Renting a car at Madrid airport. Anyone have any experience with getting an upgrade at the counter? What offers were presented? How much did you have to pay to get an upgrade?

Thanks

Err, those are very broad questions. You'll need to be more specific with e.g. what rental companies you're considering, when, what car you're booking and what you'd hope to upgrade to.

Car rental companies everywhere upgrade all the time, most frequently because they don't have the car you booked left. Some also upgrade if you have status in their programme, but you don't mention that so I'm assuming you don't have any.

Without further information, you won't be able to get a helpful answer.

As Ldnn1 notes, your question is unanswerable until you provide more information.
The advice is always: book the car you will be most comfortable in (budget-wise, needs-wise) and do not count on any upgrade.
Your choice(s) will depend on inventory on the day and what cars are available.
If you don't like what you receive, you can ask about other options.

I have gold with Hertz and Executive with National. I was not looking for free upgrades but rather what were the offers to upgrade from say a 'Compact' to the next level up or all the way up to a SUV.

Thanks

I'd say you're far more likely to get a better price booking the desired level car at the outset, rather than paying for it at the counter.

Often you'll see mid-level cars barely a few euros more than the lowest level, although proper SUVs do tend to cost a fair bit more in Europe. Do some shopping around on comparison sites like travelsupermarket.com and see what you can find. And always beware of fuel policies, especially in Spain!

Can you elaborate on the fuel policy?

Ideally you want a Full>Full. Some force a Full>Empty policy on you.

To elaborate, several of the cheap companies - most notably Goldcar - make you pay upfront at the counter for a full tank of fuel, plus an admin fee of 20/25 euros or so. They then refund what you have left, but keep the fee. So in effect your rental cost is the amount you pay online plus the compulsory fee. This can make quite a big difference to what appear at the outset to be very cheap rentals.

Note with Goldcar, if you book direct via their website you can pay a little extra for full/full, i.e. you avoid having to buy the fuel upfront. I generally prefer to do this.

Also watch out for any diesel 'supplements' being applied, even if you didn't book a diesel but are 'upgraded' to one!