Methodology
How we research.
This page explains exactly how we produce comparisons, company profiles and guides — including what we do not do. If a page on this site does not meet the standard described here, please tell us.
Our principles
- Primary documents first. A company’s booking terms, rental qualifications, regulatory filings and official pages are our starting point. We read them in full, not in summary.
- Every claim is traceable. Factual statements carry a numbered citation linking to the source and the date we accessed it.
- We say what we could not verify. If we could not confirm something, the page says so rather than guessing.
- No manufactured numbers. We do not invent ratings, scores, prices, customer counts or rankings.
How we research a company
For each broker or rental company we profile, we:
- Identify the legal entity that operates the service, and where it is registered, from its own terms or public filings.
- Read its current booking terms or rental qualifications in full and record the version or “last updated” date the document shows.
- Extract the rules that matter to renters: who the contract is with, payment, cancellation and refunds, amendments, deposits, damage cover, age and licence rules, complaints and governing law.
- Record the company’s own marketing claims — such as country counts or supplier numbers — separately from its binding terms.
- Note anything we looked for and could not find, and state the scope: rental companies often publish different rules in each country, so profiles say which market they cover.
How we label claims
Every fact in our comparison tables and company profiles carries one of these labels:
Verified in terms We read it in a binding document — terms, rental rules or a filing — on the date shown.
Company claim The company says it in its marketing or “about” pages. We have not independently verified it.
Third-party data Reported by a named third party, such as an app store listing.
Varies by supplier Set by each supplier or location, so no single value exists.
Not verified We looked for it and could not confirm it.
How we compare two companies
Comparisons use the same underlying records as our company profiles, so a fact is written once and displayed consistently. For each comparison we:
- choose the questions that matter for that pair — they differ between two brokers and two rental companies;
- present documented strengths and limitations, not marketing copy;
- explain who each option may suit, based on documented characteristics.
We do not declare an overall winner unless a documented test supports it, and we explain the criteria when we do.
How we handle prices
Car rental prices change constantly and depend on the supplier, location, dates, pick-up time, driver age and currency. We therefore do not claim that one company is cheaper in general.
When we run a price test, we publish the full parameters: location, dates and times, vehicle category, driver age, currency, the date and time of the search, the supplier shown and what was included or excluded. Until then, our comparisons explain how prices are built — and what to line up when you compare quotes yourself.
How we handle external ratings
We do not publish our own star ratings or scores, and we never convert Trustpilot, app store or other third-party ratings into a CarRental.news rating. When we mention an external rating, we name the source, the date we saw it and what it represents — and we say whether the company published it on its own site.
We do not add review or rating structured data to pages that contain no genuine review content.
How we keep pages up to date
Every time-sensitive page shows when it was published, when it was last updated, and when its facts were last checked against sources. When a policy changes, we update the existing page rather than publishing a new one, and we record significant changes in the page’s update history. We never change a publication date to make an old article look new.
Commercial relationships
At the time of writing, CarRental.news earns no commission from any company it covers. If we introduce affiliate links, they will be marked, they will use rel="sponsored", and our affiliate disclosure will list every relationship. Commercial relationships will never change a fact, a label or a conclusion. Companies do not see our articles before publication.
How to report an error
If you believe something on this site is wrong or out of date, please use our corrections process. Tell us the page, the statement and, if possible, the source that shows the correct information. We investigate every report.