rickseiler2000

Four of us are traveling through Europe in May from Amsterdam to Venice with multiple stops along the way (Luxembourg, Strasbourg, Interlaken, Fussen, Munich, Salzburg, Slovenia, etc.), so trains or planes are not practical. We want to drive, but the one way drop off charge seems exorbitant, well over $1000 for the drop off charge alone. Has anyone found a car rental company that charges less for this one way charge?

HappyTrvlr

Whenever you pick up a car in one country and drop it off in another, you will pay a large drop off fee.

janisj

>>Has anyone found a car rental company that charges less for this one way charge?<<

Nope -- that is what it costs to pick up in one country and drop in another. Usually it is possible/better to plan an itinerary that combines some trains/flights and some car rentals (collected and dropped in the same country)

Michael

If you can arrange your return flight from Nice, you could rent the car in Lille (take the train from Amsterdam to Lille) and return it in Nice, sprinting across northern Italy from Venice. But figure out what the train ride for four and the drive from Venice to Nice would cost; for the latter, use viaMichelin.com which will give you the travel time and costs of fuel and tolls.

WoinParis

Or one guy drives back the car and returns to Amsterdam and takes a flight from there to Venice.

greg

If you insist on one rigid way to travel, you would have to fork out that drop-off charge. I don't know the nature of trains not "practical."

However, you might have ruled out more options than necessary. Look at the map. I don't know what you were planning to do between Amsterdam and Luxembourg. If that is just connecting A to B, then you can do a short detour into Germany, for example, to Düsseldorf or Köln on a train and rent a German car there. Then, drive to Luxembourg, France, Switzerland, Germany and drop your car at Munich or Freilassing. Take train to Salzburg. Amsterdam-Köln train, if bought ahead of time is 19EU each.

Drop-off charge between neighboring countries are usually less than between far away countries. For example if you looked at Hertz, AMS-VCE drop-off is 1000EU, but 300EU between Salzburg-VCE.

thursdaysd

How long is this trip? Looks like it should be more than three weeks, in which case a lease might work. Check these to see what the drop off fees look like.

See: http://renaultusa.com/

http://www.autoeurope.com/buyback.cfm

But I'm not sure why you think trains and planes aren't practical.

spaarne

<i> One way car rental from Amsterdam to Venice
Posted by: rickseiler2000 on Jan 1, 17 at 11:20pm</i>

If you are going for 3 weeks or more one of the lease programs my work out better, e.g. http://www.renaultusa.com/. For an illustrated introduction to driving in Europe see http://www.enjoy-europe.com/hte/chap18/auto-1.htm

Michael

A lease tacks 2 fees to the standard cost: a pick-up fee if the car is picked up anywhere but in France, and a drop-off fee if the car is dropped off anywhere but on French soil. Even if used just in France, a three week lease will generally be higher than a rental.

<i>Or one guy drives back the car and returns to Amsterdam and takes a flight from there to Venice.</i>

From Salzburg or Slovenia?

maria_so

I just had the same shock booking my rental from Italy to France. I did a search and someone suggested looking at www.kemwell.com and they found the absolute best deal for me. I was looking at $800+ (hertz) and $1000+ with europcar but they were able to find a deal with Hertz for me for a drop off fee of $600. I did do the online then called them. I say skip the online part and just call them as they were able to find me more discount on the rental itself too that overall lowered my price. Rental rate was still cheaper than the drop off fee but that is how it goes when dropping off at a different country. Good luck!

Tulips

You must realise that the rental company cannot do anything with a foreign car, so will have to take it back to the country of origin. The charges reflect that. For four or you, on a long trip with lots of stops; 250 dollars pp.
If that is the trip you want to take, count the cost in and perhaps economise elsewhere. Or change your plans; picking up in Lille and returning somewhere like Nice, as someone else said. Though there can still be a one-way charge within France, it will not be anywhere near the cross-border drop off.

neckervd

Most places you mention are perfectly feasible by public transport. Trains between Strasbourg, Interlaken, Fussen, Munich, Salzburg run about every hr. Other places can easily be reached by bus.
May be you define your itinerary and check then if there is really a place that cannot be easily reached by public transport.

StCirq

You just can't avoid the charges, because as noted someone has to drive the car back to its point of origin. So either pay it or figure out other options - there are plenty of them. I don't know why you think that trains and planes aren't practical. They are, and there are lots of them.

hetismij2

Given that we paid nearly that for a one-way rental in the US - returning a California registered car from Chicago to LA what is more- it seems like a reasonable fee to me.

A Dutch registered car is useless to the Italian branch, unless they can find someone who also wants a one-way, the other way. The car will most likely be put on a transporter to return it to the Netherlands to save mileage, but whether driven or transported it will cost a lot for them to move it.

You need to work out whether taking trains works out cheaper for the four of you than hiring a car with a one way drop off fee, and decide which is more important, the convenience of a car or the price.

Michael

<i> Though there can still be a one-way charge within France,</i>

It depends on the rental company. Europcar has never charged me for a one-way rental in France. Hertz would have had I taken the rental offered. Both rentals through Autoeurope.

KTtravel

Definitely check with autoeurope.com and kemwel.com - both are agencies I have used.

You may well decide to do some combination of rentals and other transportation or you may just decide the ease of keeping one car is worth the fee. (Split 4 ways the fee doesn't sound quite so bad.)

HappyTrvlr

We have dropped car off near the border, taken a taxi to the next town or city in next country and rented another car there. Not so difficult to do. Using Auto Europe's website , you can find the right towns for rental car pick ups.

rickseiler2000

Thanks to everyone who tried to help us out on this. We ended up renting a station wagon through Kemwel (from Dollar) in Cologne ( thanks to the great suggestion to take a train from Amsterdam to Cologne). We will drop it off in Venice 17 days later. The total cost will be just over $800 (including the one way drop off fee of $450). A significant savings compared to the approximately $2000 quotes we were getting from individual rental car companies. We explored all sorts of different scenarios, including additional trains between certain areas and then getting cars within individual countries, but each situation ended up costing more than our final solution, plus the added logistics and loss of convenience of having the flexibility that having a car the entire time will give us.
Thanks again, Rick

WoinParis

Good !
I got the same drop-off fee when I rented a car in Mexico city and dropped it in Cancun.
Seems it is not necessarily the crossing of border that makes all the fee !
Thanks for coming back - a lot don't, and it is a pity !

greg

Just a reminder that unless you are using a car only to move from one accommodation to another accommodation without leaving car parked in between, you need to be able to conceal your luggage. Luggage left visible invites more break-ins.