· BIG ISSUES ·
Discover Cars Review: the Pros and Cons from More Than 50 Rentals
Scribbled by Claire ⬩ 17 Sep 2025
Is Discover Cars legit? Are they a scam? Can they actually save you money? Do they have hidden fees? How does their rental insurance work? We’ve absolutely smashed our way through all these common questions, and more, to show you why they are our favourite rental car broker, and why we keep using them, year-on-year!
On this blog, we primarily write about road trips. I mean, if it makes sense to drive somewhere (and occasionally when it doesn’t), we’re going to rent a car. It’s part of our m.o. – independent journeys that usually involve having our own wheels.
This means we’ve rented a lot of vehicles around the world.
The biggest issue we’ve had is that when you search for car rentals, it’s a minefield. There are so many car rental companies and aggregators, and they all seem kind of similar, offering the same products.
Some have hidden fees, others direct you off their page, have unnecessarily high prices, don’t give immediate confirmation, and many simply don’t work very well!
So how do you choose the most affordable one whilst prioritising trustworthiness – and are any superior to the others?
In the beginning, we used whoever was at the top of Google and hoped for the best – thinking that this would be the most trustworthy company (and it’s quite possible that sometimes, they were). I originally started using Discover Cars purely from this method – they were at the top of Google and were the cheapest.
Since then, though, I’ve had my fair share of car rental-related drama (which naturally comes with hundreds of thousands of miles on the road), and have always had the best support from Discover Cars when something went wrong.
I didn’t want to just write a review of what buttons they had on their website – loads of other blogs have done that after renting a car once for a weekend. All their posts read like a generic guide to booking a rental car (which is surely an entirely different topic?).
Here though, we write about why we are staunchly loyal to this particular car company and why they are excellent, beyond all the usual ‘they list lots of cars’ type comments. We talk about how we’ve used them extensively, including their rental insurance, cancellation policies, and customer service.
We literally do not use a single other car company anymore (spoiler: I couldn’t find any cons!).
IN THIS GUIDE //
Why Discover Cars is Our Go-to
Difference Between Car Rental Companies and Car Aggregators
Our Rental Experience with Discover Cars
– The Cars
– Services
Why We Recommend the Insurance
– Some incidents
– How Much Does Insurance Cost?
– Our Most Recent Claim
– Claims Process
– What is Covered?
The Cancellation Process
Is Discover Cars Affordable?
– Deposits
Everything Else You Need to Know
On the Website
Booking Tips
Where to Next?
This post may contain affiliate links. If you book through these links we may make a small commission at zero cost to you. It helps us pay for the upkeep of this blog. Thank you!
Difference Between Car Rental Companies and Car Aggregators
A car rental company rents cars – companies like Avis, Hertz, Enterprise, Sixt and many, many more international and regional options. They have a garage full of cars which they will directly rent you.
Car aggregators list car rental companies. So, they’re a broker and behave a bit like Booking.com, where it lists hotels that sell rooms (only in this example, the rooms are cars!). They don’t actually own any cars.
Discover Cars is an aggregator. It lists prices and cars from the rental companies like Avis, Sixt and Hertz.
Understanding the roles of the companies
Anyone who reviews Discover Cars, as a company, and talks about the process of picking up a rental car, videoing it for damage, how smooth the process was, or any kind of discussion that relates to the actual car rental company, doesn’t understand what Discover Cars actually does.
If someone says that they picked up a car and it was perfect, the only thing that matters is that Discover Cars made the correct booking with that car company.
It’s a bit like blaming Booking.com when you book a badly rated hotel!
For example, we turned up 24 hours late to pick up a car in Oman once due to flight delays. We had to contact the actual rental company, Dollar, in Muscat Airport and tell them to hold the car for us. Discover Cars have absolutely nothing to do with the pick up!
Our Rental Experience With Discover Cars
Why we love Discover Cars – our review pros in a neat summary:
⬩ Never had a missing or lost booking in more than 50 instances
⬩ Always received the car class/type we requested
⬩ Customer service was top notch when a company couldn’t rent to us (will explain further down)
⬩ Insurance is inexpensive
⬩ Painless insurance claims process
⬩ Affordable and competitive rental prices
⬩ Website interface is clear, easy to use, and visually nicer than most others
⬩ No pre-authorisation holds on our credit card
The Cars
In the past four-ish years, we’ve rented vehicles through Discover Cars in the United States, Costa Rica, Mexico, Oman, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Morocco, Tunisia, Thailand, Malaysia, Qatar, the U.A.E., Italy, France, Slovenia, Croatia, Japan, Canada, and some other places that I can’t remember right now.
In quite a few of these countries, we’ve even rented multiple times. So, we’ve rented four cars in Oman, four cars in Saudi Arabia, a bunch in Italy, more than I can count in Thailand, double digits in the United States, several in Mexico, and multiple ones across other countries, too.
We’ve also used one-way hire options a few times, in places like Sicily, the U.A.E. and Saudi Arabia.
We often rent for more than a month at a time. In fact, we did a quick count up, and reckon that we’ve rented from Discover Cars for more than two years in total (this likely explains why we’re perpetually poor).
Our rentals have been everything from minuscule economy cars all the way up to all-wheel and beasty-sized four-wheel drives.
We can say that every one of these bookings was exactly as we’d expected, the car model was always correct, there were no hidden fees and there were never any dramas.
The Services
We’ve also had to claim on the insurance provided by Discover Cars, several times. (Car insurance claims come with the territory when driving so many miles – you’re going to have something dodgy happen at some point). We’ll elaborate on some of these (hilarious things) further down.
We’ve also had to use Discover Cars’ customer service when it was impossible to rent a car in Saudi Arabia due to a weird visa issue (so, nothing to do with them or even the rental car company). This resulted in a full, immediate refund with absolutely no stress. There was another incident where we had to request a refund due to a policy issue (again in Saudi – always drama there!) and Discover Cars refunded us immediately, even though they didn’t do anything wrong.
We’ve also made quite a few cancellations, date changes and amendments through Discover Cars and they’ve been spot on with refunding us (I’ll explain the process further down – it’s straightforward).
As you can see, we’ve actually used this company and their services extensively over the years.
We book with them for every rental we need, even when their prices are occasionally slightly higher than a competitors. We do this purely because the insurance is great, they’re super reliable, and they’ve always been lovely people to work with.
They’re a kind of comfort, to be honest!
Why We Recommend Discover Cars’ Full Coverage Rental Insurance
We always purchase the full coverage car rental insurance provided through Discover Cars and have had to claim on it several times now.
This insurance is charged as a small daily fee on top of the car rental cost.
In our irresponsible youth, we used to just hope for the best and not opt for it, assuming that nobody would bump into (or scratch) our car. Now, we’re a bit more risk-adverse and always buy the extra insurance, so that if something (usually minor and cosmetic) happens, we don’t worry about it, at all.
None of the issues we have had to claim for were our fault. They were either bad luck or a third party driving badly (ok, there was one debatable incident in Sicily that was a *tiny bit* our fault, and it’s taken two years but I can laugh about it now!).
Some Incidents
Here are a few things that have happened to our rental cars:
⬩ We’ve had somebody back into our car (three times) in a parking lot in Yosemite while we were overnight backpacking (some kind and helpful witness left a detailed note of what happened!).
⬩ Our car was almost swept away in a flash flood (but luckily the rental company didn’t notice the significant underside damage).
⬩ A rogue bit of gravel left a huge crack in our windscreen in rural southern California. We’ve had quite a few windscreen chips, but this one was the biggest. We had to swap the car and ended up with an embarrassing bright orange Mustang, as that’s all the car company had left last minute!
⬩ A motorbike swiped our wing mirror in Malaysia.
⬩ Hilariously, we got our car actually wedged in a street in Sicily (this one was particularly costly).
There have been more incidents, but these are just some examples of the things that can happen to you! Simply, someone can prang you and damage a taillight, open their car door too hard in a car park and scratch your paint, or you could misjudge a tight parking space and scrape the side of your car.
They’re just everyday accidents that don’t do any major harm, but can cost a lot to fix.
How Much Does the Full Coverage Insurance Cost?
The additional cost for the Full Cover insurance varies, depending on the country you’re renting from, the type of car, and on the length of your rental period.
The daily costs can start from as little as a few pounds. On our most recent trips, we’ve paid (all values in UK pounds, per day):
Japan: £8.11
America: £8.72
Morocco: £6.00
Oman: £5.22
Italy: £5.62
Our Most Recent (and Expensive) Claim
Our most recent claim was that incident in Sicily, mentioned above.
We drove our tiny car down possibly the narrowest, steepest street on the planet and literally wedged ourselves between some houses and it was too steep to reverse (I think the road was exclusively designed for manual transmission Fiat Pandas – IYKYK).
We destroyed the entire underneath of the car, dented and scratched a wheel arch in multiple places, cracked the hub caps and scraped multiple meters of paintwork off both sides. It was a complete mess (I maintain that the street should never have allowed car access at all).
A helpful but slightly surly Italian man had to assist us, first in getting the car unwedged, then pushing it up the stupidly steep cobblestone hill. It was honestly the most stressful experience.
The Italian rental company said that we actually hit the max cost of the damages they could charge us for, which is funny now (but wasn’t at the time as we forked over most of a couple thousand euros).
We sent our claim through to Discover Cars and, within three days, the money was back in our account. It was the most painless insurance claim I’ve ever had to do.
And this, my friends, is why we always get the Full Coverage insurance!
The Claims Process
Through their online portal, we attached a very short statement describing our (hilarious) traumatic experience and the damage to the car. We also uploaded some pictures of the (extensive) damage and a few bits of paperwork (such as the invoice from the rental company and the car rental agreement).
A case handler emailed the next day, explaining the expected timescale for a response and, just two days later, we received another email to say the claim was successful.
That was literally it, and we received the money in our bank a few days after. We consider that well worth the £5.62 a day we spent on insurance.
What Does the Insurance Cover?
The Full Coverage insurance provided by Discover Cars is pretty exhaustive. It covers damage to the car’s roof, bodywork, windows, windshields, mirrors, lights, wheels and undercarriage. You’re also covered for losing a key, towing expenses, fueling mishaps and taxi expenses.
It does, however, not cover cleaning of the car interior.
There are alternatives, like getting your insurance directly from the car provider (like Hertz or Avis) at pick up, but that has *never*, in all my times of renting vehicles, been the most cost effective option.
The Cancellation Process
All of our car rentals through Discover Cars offered full cancellation up to 48 hours before pickup as standard. This mean that, if you book a car and change your plans more than two days before, you can easily cancel and get your money back.
We’ve cancelled and rebooked with Discover Cars loads of times and always got our money back (being indecisive travellers is one of our most annoying traits).
In the case of a cancellation, you’ll receive an email from the company with a credit voucher. If you’d prefer to have cash back because you are not rebooking, there’s a link at the bottom of the email to request a cash refund.
It’s all very straightforward.
Are Discover Cars Affordable?
Yes, we’ve almost always found Discover Cars to have the cheapest deals for our rental options. Recently, we’ve got to the point where we no longer check any other car aggregators, because the prices are always competitive and we trust them.
For example, we managed to book a high-clearance SUV through Discover Cars at the same price quoted by a car hire company for a small sedan in California. This actually saved us thousands of dollars (it was a longer rental).
We used to check loads of different brokers, plus compare directly with a whole bunch of car rental companies. This was extremely time consuming and immensely tedious. We always ended up choosing Discover Cars as our option anyway (especially when considering the insurance costs, too, which we find very affordable compared with the rental companies direct).
Deposits
Anyone who writes that Discover Cars charges low deposits is twisting the truth, hard.
Some car rental companies request low deposits, other want large ones. It’s not a Discover Cars thing, it’s a rental company and destination thing.
However, the Discover Cars website always shows the value clearly on the main search page, and even highlights when a deposit is on the higher end of the range.
We find this super helpful (nobody wants to pay a higher than average deposit!).
Everything Else you Need to Know
What’s the Longest Rental Allowed on Discover Cars?
There is no maximum rental limit set directly by Discover Cars.
The actual maximum length for the car rental is down to legislation within the country and the specific car supplier.
Some destinations only allow rentals of up to one month, or even four weeks, while others allow rentals well beyond this. Likewise, some car rental companies within a country won’t rent for more than 30 days, whereas others will.
The rental conditions will state any maximum car hire length.
To get around this, it is possible to book multiple cars in a row. However, you’ll have to return to the initial pick-up location and sign a new contract.
The longest car rental we’ve booked though Discover Cars was for three months in the United States (so it’s definitely possible to have longer than a month).
What Car Companies Work with Discover Cars?
There are currently 737 car rental companies listed on Discover Cars. These include some local companies operating in just one area of a country, and the more well known international ones.
What Countries does Discover Cars Work in?
At present, Discover Cars works with car companies in over 50,000 locations across 164 countries.
On the Website
Discover Cars has a clean, user-friendly website. It’s actually really quick to book a car and there’s no messing about.
Some of the nicer elements include:
⬩ Clear car company reviews
⬩ Really amazing filtering system that helps you choose the exact option you want, like non-airport and seat options
⬩ Doesn’t send you off to another website
⬩ Shows whether the booking is instant confirmation (this is important if you’re booking last minute, like we do)
⬩ Allows filtering by credit and debit card payment (helpful since not everyone has a credit card)
⬩ Highlights which companies are charging a higher than average deposit
⬩ Never forced to re-enter any details
⬩ Obvious free cancellation options
⬩ Options to add booster or child seats and additional drivers
⬩ Clear business hours so you don’t try and pick up a car when the company is closed!
⬩ Zero hidden fees and very transparent pricing
⬩ Extra driver pricing is clear (and highlights the companies that provide it for free!)
⬩ Prices are listed in your home currency
⬩ Mentions any mileage limits up-front
⬩ Able to compare multiple car companies at the same time
Booking Tips for Discover Cars
⬩ Off-airport can be cheaper depending on your arrival/pick up point
⬩ Off-airport might be more convenient in big towns and cities
⬩ Think about the type of car you want or need
⬩ Check ratings and number of ratings of the car rental company
⬩ Check for mileage limits and the cost if you go over
⬩ Manual cars can be a cheaper rental option in some countries, especially in Europe.
Where to Next?
So, if you were in any doubt about whether Discover Cars is trustworthy or legitimate, I hope I’ve assuaged those fears! It’s a great company that has an easy to use website with transparent insurance and rental policies. We’d highly recommend using them for your next road trip.
Happy browsing!
For more road trip inspiration, have a look at our favourite road trips across the world – these are our top destinations across the world to hit the road in!
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