I received an ad from Autoeurope advertising a special that will last only until today, January 31. I had to scramble to figure out my time lines at we are doing some complicated travels (Germany, France, England). It turns out that trying to book the car rentals had its limits. No city location was acceptable, in the case of Germany as a drop-off point and in the case of France as a pick-up point. In both cases it has to be a railroad station or an airport.
It turns out that there is a real savings on the German rental with a differential of about $70 if using the deal offered rather than going straight into the Autoeurope site to book without taking into account the discount offered. But on the French rental there is practically no difference (maybe $1 per day on the rental cost), while there are other serious limitations. The deal was limited to Hertz rentals with only two cars offered and one had to eventually pay a 35€ fee for the railroad station pick-up, while going directly to the Autoeurope site allowed for a city pick-up with no extra fee and a much larger selection of potential cars through Europcar, which is what I did.
In one case the ad does lead to a price break, and in the other it is simply a come-on.
Autoeurope's specials
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AutoEurope is just a broker and books you with Avis, Hertz, etc. When you choose locations, you must match the companies if you are picking up at one and dropping at another. You can't select a Hertz address for pick up and an Avis drop off or you will be told it's not available.
I was not choosing the company. The Hertz choice on the French site was the only one available for the special deal. I was choosing the pick-up location and the drop-off location. Presumably the site will compute which car company fits that bill. So Hertz was the special with a pick-up at the Gare de lyon and a drop-off at the Limoges airport. When not using the special deal, I could have had Europcar at the Gare de Lyon-Limoges airport combination (it's happened in the past). I do not recall ever having to choose or being able to specify a rental agency independently of the car being offered--the agency is named with the car chosen--choose a Mégane and you get Europcar, choose an Astra and you get Hertz.
What I am pointing out is that the French "deal" is a Hertz special which offers few or no advantages to a rental outside the deal but with Autoeurope.
Upgrade to my original report.
Autoeurope is currently offering up to a 20% discount on rental. So I checked and discovered that for $14 more on the basic rental (extra fees excluded) I can have a car that allows me to drop it off in Berlin proper close to where I am staying. Moreover, there is no one-way charge. The Autoeurope agent pointed out that Europcar (my new provider) does not charge for a one-way rental as Hertz (my original provider) does. What is annoying is that even with the same broker one has to shop around to find the best deal.
I didn't say you could specify a company in the process. When you select a pick up location on Autoeurope's website and a different drop off location, you can't mix companies. You have to know which addresses match which companies or it will say not available. You can't select an address that is actually a Hertz location to pick up and then select an address that is actually an Avis location to drop off. There is no way of knowing this unless you look up Avis, Hertz and Europcar addresses on each companies website before attempting to book with Autoeurope.
My original point was that the special was restricted to a specific provider, and that in the French case not using the special offer opened up rental possibilities for only $1 more per day. I think that Autoeurope should have advertised their special as a Hertz special.