A survey asking customers of car hire companies, hotels and airlines to rate their most irritating experiences when making use of the services provided have voted that their biggest gripes are unhelpful, rude employees and additional charges.

Consumer Reports magazine, which conducted the poll, asked 2,000 members of the public to rate a list of potentially annoying situations form 1 to 10. 1 being not in the least annoying, and 10 being extremely irritating.

For both car hire firms and hotels customers said that it was the attitude of the staff which really affected their experiences in a negative way. Rental car customers gave rude staff a 7.9 on the gripe scale and hotel customers gave unhelpful service employees a 7.8. On airlines, staff not providing a useful service scored 7.7, just behind added fees and luggage charges as the most frustrating experience.

Additional fees were second on the list of gripes for car rental customers and for those staying in hotels scoring 7.7 and 7.6 respectively. Other irritations for those renting vehicles included that state in which the car was in when it was handed over to them. Damaged and dirty cars scored a 7.0 on the annoyance scale.

Those using car hire firms also voted high pressure pitches as quite annoying along with not being given the car initially requested. On airlines it seems that not being kept informed about delays is actually more irritating than the delays themselves. Noisy children on aircraft also came well down the list of irritations on flights behind people hogging the carry on space as well as seat space.