Car rental at the airport in Romania: the truth about prices, deposits and the traps of “cheap” offers

Why cheap €5 per day car rentals do not actually exist?

You have probably seen ads like: “call us and we’ll work out a car rental offer”, “cheap car rental” or “cheap airport car rental from €5/day” or even less?

It sounds great, almost too good to be true for any airport car rental and, honestly, I would want the same thing every day without taking risks that could affect my family’s budget. In reality, these prices do not reflect the final cost and, most of the time, have nothing to do with what you actually end up paying.

These are the questions we answer transparently, using clear mathematical calculations, because mathematics is an exact science and cannot be contradicted.

A car such as a Dacia Logan, considered one of the most affordable options on the market, involves real costs that cannot support a €5/day rate. If we properly analyze acquisition, maintenance, insurance, depreciation and operational costs, we quickly reach the conclusion that a sustainable price for such a vehicle is significantly higher. Under these conditions, it is obvious that more expensive cars cannot be rented at lower prices than a Dacia Logan unless we are talking about very old vehicles, which increases the risk for the customer.

Even in an optimistic scenario where the car is rented 200 or 300 days per year, there is a minimum threshold below which the business cannot operate without compromises or without recovering the difference through other methods: large deposits, hidden fees or additional insurance imposed later.

The truth is simple: the initially displayed price is, in most cases, just an entry point, not the real cost of the rental.

Next, we will break down this mechanism and you will see that if you do not pay the real price upfront, there is a high chance that you become the product, through fees, conditions or hidden costs applied later and included in contracts that, in reality, most customers do not read carefully.

The myth of “cheap car rental” – why the displayed price is not the final price

Most “cheap car rental” offers are designed to attract clicks, not to reflect the real cost of an airport car rental service. The prices displayed on websites or aggregators are often incomplete and do not include essential elements that appear later during the booking process or at vehicle pickup.

Price without full insurance

In many cases, the displayed rate includes only a basic form of insurance (such as CDW), which leaves the customer exposed to significant costs in case of damage. To reduce the risk, an additional insurance is required, increasing the daily rental cost.

Price without additional fees

The initial price always includes very limited insurance and does not include fees such as:

• airport fees
• delivery or return fees in another location
• additional driver costs
• administrative fees
• extra insurance

These costs are added later and can significantly change the final price.

Price without real availability

Another common issue is the lack of availability at the advertised price. The offer is promoted to attract users, but at the time of booking, the vehicle is no longer available or is replaced with one from a different category at a higher price.

In practice, this mechanism works as a marketing filter: the customer is attracted by a very low price but ends up paying more in the end.

Real calculation: how much does it cost to rent a Dacia Logan in Romania?

To understand concretely why a price of €5/day cannot exist, we made a real calculation based on actual market costs for a Dacia Logan, used in a rental fleet, starting from an acquisition cost of €15,300 (VAT included), respectively €12,644 excluding VAT.

The average booking duration is 7 days, and the number of kilometers driven annually is approximately 23,000 km, so we will analyze the rate available for 7 rental days, as this is also the basis for price formation.

To make this very easy to illustrate and easier to understand, we will analyze two scenarios:

• Optimistic scenario: the car is rented 300 days per year
• Realistic scenario: the car is rented 210 days per year

The costs of providing the car rental service over a period of 5 years for a Dacia Logan are illustrated in the table below:

So, at this point, we have a clear order of magnitude for the investment required for a Dacia Logan to reach the customer. Of course, any company and any individual invests this money in order to make a profit, otherwise why would anyone risk their money in this way? In this example, we will choose a 10% profit, although the real minimum profit for providing a car rental service is in fact at least 35%.

Breakdown of the average rental price for 7 days (for shorter rentals the price will increase, for longer rentals it will decrease, but the annual average must fit within the value in the following table in order to achieve the expected profit):

As can be clearly seen, with a minimum profit of €1.48/day (approximately 8 lei) in the optimistic scenario or €2.03/day (approximately 10 lei) in the realistic scenario, the final rental price per day for a Dacia Logan cannot be lower than €20.34 in the optimistic scenario and is impossible to achieve in the Moldova region, where there is no constant flow throughout the year.

The real and minimum cost for one rental day is therefore:

• € 20.34/day in the optimistic scenario
• € 27.87/day in the realistic scenario

These are real values, calculated at the lower limit, without including major cost variations or unforeseen situations, but they do include CASCO insurance, RCA, road tax vignette, tires, oil changes, mandatory services and only €1,000 for unforeseen repairs not covered by the vehicle warranty, etc.

In addition, after 5 years, the car is sold (with an annual depreciation of 12% taken into account). Let us see what the revenues mean, according to the above figures, over the entire 5-year period:

At this point, the situation is very clear and we can calculate what profit means for the rental company, applying a 10% commercial margin:

As can be seen, the profit resulting in the two scenarios is extremely low for a 10% commercial margin, and the rental price did not under any circumstances come out as being able to be lower than €20.34 in the most optimistic scenario analyzed:

• Optimistic scenario (300 rental days per year) at an average rental price of €20.34/day: average gross profit of approximately €2,213.84/year or €184.49/month
• Realistic scenario (210 rental days per year) at an average rental price of €27.87/day: average gross profit of approximately €2,195.64/year or €182.97/month

From these amounts, dividend taxes and contributions to the state still have to be paid, which further reduces the real gain.

The conclusion is simple: even under ideal conditions, a price below €20.34/day for 300 rental days per year or €27.87/day for 210 days is completely unsustainable, and this calculation does not take into account inflation, cost variations or real operating risks, because the resulting price would have been higher and we wanted to keep things simple to understand and explain.

Under these conditions, any price significantly lower than these values does not reflect better efficiency, but most likely the existence of hidden costs or compromises that will later appear for the customer.

For a better understanding, a price of 5 EUR per day generates a total revenue of:

• € 7,500 in the optimistic scenario, while the total costs excluding VAT are € 22,237.47
• € 5,250 in the realistic scenario, while the total costs excluding VAT are € 21,327.47

As can be seen, these amounts do not even cover the acquisition cost of the car, not to mention the rest of the operating expenses.

Therefore, the obvious question arises: if you see a price of €5/day, who covers the difference?

Where is the difference recovered: hidden costs and car rental deposits at the airport or in the city

Once you understand that a price of €5/day cannot cover the real costs of a car, the logical question appears: where is the difference recovered from?

The answer is simple: after you have made the booking you will usually find out, when you are at the airport with your luggage and possibly your family, in the middle of the night and tired after the flight.

The mathematical truth: Any price below €28/day for a Dacia Logan in the minimum realistic scenario means that the company is recovering its losses from your deposit or directly from your pocket, the real cost for a €15,300 car being €33/day with a 30% commercial margin. This value may rise in peak season and drop in low season, but the average still needs to remain at €33/day for a 7-day booking.

In most cases, the initially displayed price is only an entry point used to attract the click and the booking. The real cost appears later, at vehicle pickup or even after that.

The most common ways in which the difference is recovered are:

1. The “optional” insurance that becomes mandatory

Very often, the displayed price does not include full insurance. At pickup, the customer is put in a position where they must choose between:

• A very large deposit blocked on a credit card that not everyone owns (Many customers find out that they need a credit card, not a debit card, only at the desk. At Romanian Car Hire, we also accept debit cards, because we know that a holiday should not depend on the type of plastic in your wallet, and a maximum deposit of only €200 is required only for premium-class cars. 
• Paying an additional daily insurance that increases the price from €5 per day to more than €33 - €40/day, making the rental more expensive than if, from the beginning, the customer had chosen transparent services such as Iași airport car rental, Suceava airport car rental or Bacău airport car rental, such as those offered by Romanian Car Hire.

In practice, this is not a real choice, it only creates the impression that the customer has a choice, while the final cost increases significantly. It is still possible that the customer does not buy that additional insurance, and then, theoretically, the company loses money.

2. Excessively large deposits

Amounts of €1,000 – €2,000 or even more are frequently requested as a deposit.

Besides the financial impact, there is also the risk that these amounts may be withheld partially or fully for minor or questionable damage, and rental agents have no interest in pointing out small scratches if the customer did not pay for the extra insurance. Moreover, if pickup takes place at night or without good natural light, an inexperienced customer will not notice all defects to have them written into the pickup report, but when returning the car, the agent will be extremely strict, because otherwise they may lose their job, and the company would fail to make a profit or recover its costs, as shown above, at a price of €5 per day.

3. No real availability at the advertised price

In many cases, the car at the “promotional” price is not actually available, and the customer is offered more expensive alternatives at a moment when they no longer have the time or real options to refuse. This usually happens upon arrival at the airport, on a “take it or leave it” basis.

We have lost count of how many times we were contacted in the middle of the night by tourists left stranded by:

• private individuals renting cars through social networks or online ads
• companies charging prices below the minimum profitable level

so that we could prepare and deliver a car in record time for a family with a small child, tired and disappointed by empty promises, or who refused to take part in the trick being played on them. For us, at Romanian car Hire, this is not just a business procedure, but a moral responsibility.

4. Hidden costs in the contract

One thing that few customers read in the contract is that the insurance covers costs only up to a maximum amount, which at some companies is equal to the deposit amount or, by purchasing the extra insurance, only avoids paying that deposit, while the customer’s liability still remains up to that amount.

What happens if the car is damaged and the value of the damage is double the covered amount?

The contract allows the rental company to pursue you legally and enforce against your assets or garnish your income until the difference is recovered, of course, in accordance with the law.

These details are rarely read carefully and can generate unexpected additional costs, as customers believe that if they paid for the extra insurance, they can completely destroy the car without consequences. Moreover, this is exactly how rental agents sell that insurance, and most customers no longer read the contract.

One case, however, attracted our attention more than any other: a customer managed to cause damage of over €9,000 to a VW car. He had full insurance and had paid a high daily rate. Some time after returning the damaged car, he received a formal notice from a law firm stating that he still had to pay €6,000 because the insurance he had purchased covered any damage only up to €3,000. He was deeply disappointed when he told us about it and had never believed that by renting a car through a large offer aggregator platform, he would end up in such a situation. We are waiting to see how it was finally resolved, the next time he returns to Romania and rents another car from us.

5. Hidden commissions through intermediaries

A very interesting thing observed in the market comes from websites that show offers from multiple companies and display a daily cost even lower than €5 (yes, we have seen offers at 5 cents, meaning around 0.3 lei per day). At that daily price, the website simply places the booking with the supplier, and that is all, while the customer later has to pay the amount requested by the supplier when they actually need the car, or risk being left without one if they refuse. These details do appear on aggregator pages, but they are written in very small print and hidden so well that you are unlikely to notice them before taking out your card and making the payment.

And in many situations, the customer realizes this only after they are already involved in the process.

In contrast, there is also a different approach: transparent prices, no hidden costs and no exaggerated deposits.

At Romanian Car Hire, the policy is simple:

• no deposit for most cars
• reduced deposits for premium classes
• insurance included and it covers the full value of the car, according to the CASCO policy
• no mandatory credit card
• what you see is exactly what you pay

No surprises at pickup. No hidden costs. No pressure.

Because, in the end, the difference is not in the displayed price, but in the respect shown to the customer and in the way the offer is built.

Choose safety instead of illusions

When planning a trip and you need to use airport car rental services, for example, the last thing you want is a conflict at the counter or an unexpected hole in your budget right at the start of your holiday. We chose to be the honest voice in the market because we want customers who come back to us every time, not customers we trick just once.

Next time you compare prices, ask yourself: am I paying a fair price now or will I pay later the “cost of inattention”?

We invite you to discover our services and enjoy the road without worrying about contracts written in small print.