The Worst-Case Car Rental Scenario with InterRent at Barcelona Airport – Tips & Tricks!

In Spain and Portugal, “ale-hop” shops are only to be found in inner cities. Accordingly, it should be a nice little detour into the city. We only had one day for this business appointment in Barcelona, ​​and only 2 hours for shopping. That’s why we reserved an Opel Corsa online for an unbeatable €10/day with InterRent. The horror: We didn’t know that InterRent is not only an unbelievably bad landlord, but also that it’s only at Terminal 2. This is a disaster when, like many travellers, you arrive at the main Terminal 1 of Barcelona El Prat Airport (BCN) and first have to take a 15-minute bus ride.

From Terminal 1 to 2 – this shouldn’t happen!

On sites like Check24 you can use the filter “Car rental company in the terminal“ so that you are not outside the airport, but unfortunately that includes Barcelona also terminal 2. You can only get there via a shuttle bus, which has to completely circle the airport area with several stops and is completely overcrowded. Simply walking to Terminal 2 is basically impossible due to its location on expressways. Lufthansa, Eurowings, Ibera, Vueling etc come all at the big Terminal 1 at. Supposed low-cost carriers such as airlines such as Ryanair, Eurowings, Easyjet, Norwegian etc. dock at Terminal 2, which is actually a cargo terminal. Which airline arrives and departs where can be found in this overview. The shuttle ride in the afternoon can quickly turn into a disaster, especially when returning: The shuttle bus drives on the normal expressway, where there is often a traffic jam just before Terminal 1 in the afternoon. We only caught our return flight from Terminal 1 through extreme rushing.

Many airlines arrive at the main Terminal 1. Terminal 2 is a long shuttle ride away at the other end of the campus.

InterRent cannot be outdone when it comes to impertinence

Of course, with the price of €10 a day, that can’t really be the case. The trick is that the employees at the InterRent counter in broken English process all (inexperienced) customers with reservations until they are afraid of alleged damage and get overpriced additional insurance (i.e. a Further fully comprehensive insurance). If, like us, you make a reservation with Check24, you will receive a direct entry at the end of the online booking PDF with an info in Spanish, which is presented to the employees. It states unmistakably that at Check24 booked all insurances (incl. comprehensive insurance without SB).. Then, like us, you can actually get there with the 10 € / day. We got an old Opel Corsa with over 65,000 kilometers and countless damages. Check24’s fully comprehensive insurance would have covered any further damage from us. We waited at the counter for 30 minutes.

Opel Corsa with more than 65,000 km from InterRent and a lot of damage.

Prefer better car rental companies in terminal 1 to take!

Rental companies like Europcar, Hertz, Sixt, Enterprise or Avis are a bit more expensive, but are located right in Terminal 1. Most of them are even right in the arrivals hall – so that’s really perfect. There are many more in Terminal 2. And beware: the cheap rental company Firefly exists also only in Terminal 2! At this point we also recommend our ranking & comparison of Spanish car rental companies. From experience, it is actually worth flying with a “premium airline” like Lufthansa from Frankfurt or Munich to Barcelona, ​​since the Barcelona routes have been consistently cheap with Lufthansa for years. If you value fast rental car processing, you should rather pay 10 € more for the flight so that you arrive directly at Terminal 1.

Be sure to set the correct settings

Correct(!) search on comparison portals

We already recommended Check24 for the rental car comparison at the beginning of the year. Here, however, it is still important after the correct settings to filter. Most importantly, you always book the premium protectionas well as a car rental right in the airport chooses. (Otherwise you will sometimes be shuttled several kilometers away to the rental station). You should definitely book one fair tank regulation. This means that you pick up the car with a full tank and return it with a full tank. Under no circumstances should you agree to return with an empty tank and pay for the first full tank! You can never do that exactly and then always pay extra.