The hell of airport car hire, and how to make it better

Most people’s experience of airport car-hire isn’t a pleasant one, with long waits, hidden charges and a curious habit of not giving you the car you ordered. It needn’t be that bad, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

Cars I have rented in the past six months: a Fiat Panda (France); a Volvo XC40 (Italy); a Renault Megane (France); and a nondescript, too-small piece of nothingness, the brand of which I have forgotten (Ireland).

None remotely resembled the car I ordered. The Panda was a straight downgrade ("There isn't anything else, do you want it or not?") with no refund offered. The Volvo was an unwanted upgrade. Reader tip: the only car suitable for the tiny, twisty roads on the Amalfi coast is an already bashed-up Panda which is why the Volvo was on offer ("There isn't anything else").

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.