DebitNM

I am a US citizen/resident. I was checking car prices for a trip to France later this year. I got what I thought was a pretty decent rate. I mentioned it to the friends we are going to visit. They are full time residents of France [they may still be UK citizens].

When they went to look at price, for same rental period, it was quite a bit higher. It got us to wondering why.

They are going to London in December and priced out a car on Kemwel while at their home in France. I priced it out from here in US.Everything was same: type of car, dates etc. Their cost was over 50% more!

My question is this:

If I make the reservation from here in US, using his name, information, credit card etc. will he get that US rate or will he have to pay more when he picks up car?

Thanks.

hetismij2

I can't answer that Deb, but it is normal for car rental rates to be higher for those living in a country/area. We can hire a car in the US for a lot less than you can, and don't have to pay one way drop off fees within certain areas for instance.

I would suggest you try booking the car and see if it will allow you to do so. If it goes through then I doubt they will have to pay extra on collecting it.

They can of course also shop around themselves, directly with different rental companies and see what they get offered.

Odin

When they pick up the car, if the address in the booking doesn't match the drivers licence address, there might be an issue. You have to indicate the country of residence when booking the car. Even if there isn't an issue with the address, should there be a need for an insurance claim, they might run into some issues.

I don't agree that renting a car in the US is less expensive for non US citizens than US ones. Non US have to pay (or should be) paying for CDW, personal accident insurance etc.

DebitNM

I would use ALL of my friends info to book the car, so CC, driver's license, address etc will match his when he picks up the car.

I am trying to figure out if this is "kosher" or not.

Christina

It doesn't surprise me at all that some company dealing internationally would have different prices for different markets. It's just their marketing mechanism as to how to price the different markets, I suppose. Maybe if you lived in a really poor country, it would be even cheaper. Or maybe they've had bad experience with people from the UK, who knows. I suspect it's just marketing segmentation, though.

Dukey1

This whole "issue" of can I go ahead and book a car with AutoEurope using their "European" sites) rather than their US one (because apparently the prices can be significantly lower) has come up here in the past.

I wish I could tell you how to search for those threads. As i recall, perhaps incorrectly, the responses ultimately seemed to indicate that people have done it and there is nothing illegal about doing so.

When I have used AE in the past I have always used the US site and have also always taken their insurance-inclusive rates. I have always upgraded that insurance at the local counter so that everything that is usually covered is (and that often still leaves out things like tires and glass).

As you probably know, there are a lot of people who use their credit card rental car insurance coverage instead.

Whether or not your saying your country of residence will EVER become an issue I cannot say for certain. Of course if you say you ARE a non-US resident that alone I think everyone would say is some sort of "falsehood."

StCirq

I have used the UK AutoEurope site to book a car, because the price was cheaper than the one I could get on the U.S. AutoEurope site. I didn't have any problems and don't think it was illegal. Everything I brought with me matched everything on the booking. I don't think this is a problem.

Odin

I do think it will be OK. The insurance coverage by credit card might not be applicable to your UK/FR friends. My credit card company certainly does not offer car rental insurance. Kemwell charges in USD? Do your friends mind the USD-EUR-GBP conversion on their credit card statement?

jpie

I am a US citizen currently living in France. Back in 2001 I used to notice a huge difference on sites like Avis.com versus Avis.fr But over the years they seem to haven't gotten wiser about the discrepancy. However,I did just book a car for friend arriving tomorrow from the US and used Europcar.fr and got a much better rate even when I tried from the same computer 5 minutes later on europcar.com I booked for her since she wasn't sure of the name of our nearest rental town, etc.

Usually my experience has been that the US sites are cheaper and include free mileage which is not always true on the French sites. This time it was the opposite.

I have used both sites many times on various agencies and never run into a problem having the rate honored. However, I don't use Autoeurope which is an aggregator versus an agency (generally I don't use them because we have switched to a lease program mostly or we had more complex rentals that I preferred to book direct for one reason or another)

yestravel

I have used a variety of non USA AE site. I always entered all the correct info and never had a problem. This winter when I went to rent a car for Portugal, I did the same and could not get my credit card to go through on any of the non USA sites. (Yes, I notified the cc company and they hadn't gotten any charges so it was not them.) I ended up using the US site which was a bit more expensive than some of the European sites. I'm about to try again for a trip this fall.

Dukey1

OK, I just went to the Autoeurope France website. It asks for one's country of residence. How can anyone who is a US resident say they have used that site and "filled out all the information correctly" unless they have a French address and are also a resident of France?

yestravel

I have not used the French site, but I have used the GB, IT and Euro ones &never had an issue. The last time I used it (this past winter) I had trouble. What I thought may have changed was that drop down menu was added or changed because I didn't remember from all my previous rentals. However, I did fill in all information correctly with those previous rentals that I mentioned. So if the drop down menu was there previously I put US as my country of residence. This last time when I couldn't get my rental to go thru when I put US as my country of residence the site immediately switched to the US site.

ekscrunchy

You can use any site you like. I have often used sites other than the US ones although I am a US resident. Never had a problem. But you can also ask AE or Kemwell to match the prices that you find on the foreign sites.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...c-question.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ar-rentals.cfm

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...s-in-italy.cfm

ekscrunchy

Yestravel: If the credit card does not go through, you might try phoning. I use the online sites for research, but always book through the phone. Sometimes a call will net a small discount over the online price. And you can often request that the car come from specific agencies like Avis, etc.

yestravel

eks -- a few questions. Have you used the European sites in the last 6 months? Do you id on the drop down menu that you are a US citizen?
Do you cal the US number or the European number?

yestravel

I just went to the Auto Europe UK and Italia site. As soon as I use the drop down menu and put US in as my country of residence, the site switches to AE USA.

ekscrunchy

I have not used them in the past six months. I always called the US numbers for both brokers after checking the various sites, both domestic and European/UK.

Try putting in that you are a citizen of the country of the particular site. Get the price and if it lower than the price on the US site, phone the 800 number and ask them to match the price. Make sure that insurance deductibles or coverage are the same when you compare.

Please let me know how you fare with this. It can be so confusing and time consuming.

yestravel

This is a first. The rate with AE US was less than the rates for UK or IT. This is a short car rental - only 6 days -- so perhaps that was the reason.

In the past I have called AE US and tried to get them to match the lower price I was able to get on the other sites. They would not do it and told me I could not use the European sites. They said I would have trouble when I tried to pick up the car. That never happened.

LSky

Maybe it costs AutoEurope and Kemwel more money to do business with European customers because they are US companies?

Christina

That could be possible, wouldn't surprise me. They may have different taxes and fees or something. Or there could be some different insurance requirements, that also wouldn't surprise me at all.

I'll admit I just went to autoeurope.com and it doesn't even ask you anything about citizenship or what country you live in when giving the quotes, so I'm a little confused about what people mean. Not until you select a price does it ask you to fill out a form with your country of residence (I don't see anything asking about citizenship, don't know why that would matter). Maybe there are different websites for different countries (the suffix) but I don't see where it asks you that info up front at all. I just looked at the French website and it doesn't either that I can see. Only if you click on the France button at the top left does it show country of residence but I would have had no reason to do that as I read French.