VIP Cars Review: Is It a Good Way to Rent a Car in Morocco?

In depth

It helps to be clear what VIP Cars actually is before judging it: it's a booking broker and price-comparison platform, not a company that owns cars. You enter your airport, dates and driver age, and it searches roughly 800 rental companies — global names like Europcar, Avis, Sixt, Hertz and Budget alongside independent local agencies — then ranks the results by price.

You book through VIP Cars, receive a voucher, and collect the keys from the chosen supplier's desk at the airport. That model fits Morocco well, because the market here is a patchwork of international chains and small local outfits whose prices for the same Dacia can differ wildly; seeing them in one list is the whole point.

Coverage across Morocco is broad enough for almost any itinerary. You'll find pickup at Marrakech Menara (RAK), Casablanca Mohammed V (CMN), Agadir Al Massira (AGA), Fes–Saïss (FEZ) and Tangier Ibn Battouta (TNG), plus Rabat and a number of city-centre and hotel-delivery points. The everyday fleet is what you'd expect for the country: economy manuals like the Dacia Logan or Kia Picanto for city hops and coast runs, mid-size cars for more legroom, and 4x4s for anyone heading up into the Atlas or out toward the desert pistes.

One-way rentals are supported too, so a Marrakech pickup with a Casablanca drop-off — a common road-trip shape — is bookable rather than a phone-call special.

The booking flow is clean and, more importantly, honest about money up front. VIP Cars quotes an "all-inclusive" price that already contains the collision damage waiver, theft waiver, airport surcharge and local taxes, so the headline figure is much closer to what you'll really pay than a bare desk rate that bolts those on later. You pay part of the cost online to confirm and settle the balance when you collect the car, which softens the hit of booking months ahead.

Most rates allow free cancellation up to 48 hours before pickup, so locking in a price early carries little risk if your plans shift.

Now the part every first-time renter in Morocco should read twice: the deposit and the excess. The eye-catching "from" prices are for a bare economy car in quiet season and do not include the refundable security deposit the supplier blocks on the main driver's credit card, nor the insurance excess you're liable for if the car is damaged. Those amounts are set by the local supplier and can be substantial.

You can usually buy the excess down to zero — either as a VIP Cars add-on or at the desk — and for peace of mind on Moroccan roads many people do. Bring a physical credit card (not a debit card) in the lead driver's name, because that's almost always required to release the deposit.

Transmission is the other thing to sort before you arrive. Morocco, like much of the region, runs overwhelmingly on manual cars, so automatics are both scarcer and more expensive. If you can only drive an automatic, treat it as a must-book-early item and filter for it specifically — turning up hoping to swap at the desk is how people end up paying a premium or driving a stick for the first time on the airport ring road.

Air conditioning is standard on most cars and genuinely worth confirming if you're travelling Marrakech or the south in summer.

What renting actually buys you in Morocco is freedom that a transfer can't match — and a few realities worth knowing. The motorways (Marrakech–Casablanca–Tangier, Marrakech–Agadir) are modern, tolled and easy. City driving in Marrakech, Fes and Casablanca is intense, parking inside a medina is impossible, and you'll rely on parking gardiens who watch your car for a small tip. Expect routine police checkpoints — keep your documents handy and your speed legal — and fuel up before long empty stretches in the south.

None of this is a VIP Cars issue, but it's the context that decides whether a rental or a private transfer is the smarter call for your trip.

Because VIP Cars surfaces both local and international suppliers, the choice often comes down to price versus predictability. The local Moroccan agencies are frequently the cheapest line in the results and can be excellent, but cars may be older and deposit or fuel policies stricter; the international chains cost more and reward you with newer fleets and a more standardised counter.

The value of the platform is letting you weigh those against each other on one screen — and read the supplier's own rating before you commit, rather than discovering the trade-off only at the desk.

That broker structure is also where the honest caveat lives. VIP Cars handles the booking, the price and the customer service around it, but the car, the counter staff and the day-to-day experience belong to whichever supplier you picked. A bad desk reflects on that supplier more than on VIP Cars, so the single most useful habit is to choose on the supplier's reviews and terms, not on price alone.

The cheapest result is not always the smoothest pickup, and ten minutes reading the rental conditions saves the classic holiday-rental headaches.

So who is it for? Road-trippers who want to compare every supplier at a Moroccan airport and lock a refundable rate weeks ahead; anyone doing a one-way or multi-city loop where flexibility matters; and travellers comfortable with the deposit-and-excess routine of car hire. Who should skip it? If you only need to get from the airport to your riad and won't drive every day, a private transfer or grand taxi is cheaper and far less stressful than parking in a medina city — renting a car you'll leave with a gardien for three days rarely makes sense.

The verdict: as a price-comparison front door to a Morocco self-drive, VIP Cars does its job well — wide supplier choice, genuinely all-inclusive quotes, refundable bookings and strong airport coverage. Just go in with eyes open: book an automatic early if you need one, budget for the security deposit and decide on excess cover, and pick your supplier on its reviews rather than the lowest number.

Do that and it's an efficient way to line up a car; for the airport arrival itself, many travellers still pair it with a transfer for the first night and save the rental for the days they actually want to drive.