el13207

We will be staying in Chania, Crete and then Plaka, Naxos in mid to late September, and plan to rent a car in both places. Can anyone suggest a reputable car rental agency? We just want a small, manual car, nothing fancy.

clausar

MY advise is to rent only from the international well known companies and avoid local car rentals, no matter how tempting their offers can be.
Had many cases ( used to work as a rep for a german touroperator in my early 20s) where these companies overcharged people, especially after an accident.
or in other cases cars were crap and it took them ages to change the car or repair them, while people where waiting often in the middle of nowhere ( in Crete).
Depending on the places that you wanna visit in Chania, i would recommend a car category B with a/c ( i think all cars have a/c now). Crete is a huge island and category A might not be enough, especially if you want to go to remote places.
It should be better to make your booking before your trip to Greece, you may get a better price compared to the offers on the spot. ( and i always speak about international companies such as Hertz, Avis, National etc...
I use Avis when i travel abroad, found out they have the lowest rates, but i always compare in order to find the best offer... In Greece i think Avis and National have the lowest rates... with hertz Budget etc being on the more expensive side.

CaptCanuck

For our trip to Crete this summer, we booked with Anna Cars based on some recommendations from this board. There were also favourable reviews on line for them during our research. Of course, I won't know till summer how it goes, but I feel pretty confident based on the ease and flexibility of booking with them.
cheers,
CC

barryedmond

From my personal experience I can suggest you to hire from Hertz or Pointcarhire as both of them have large fleet of cars. So you would have a large variety of cars to hire a car for yourself. Also they provide nice offers which will help you to ease load on your pocket. 

clausar

Point carhire has no car stations in Greece, as he is only selling through the internet, using the irish broker Cartrawler. If you book through point, you will get a confirmation for one of the international car rentals such as sixt, Europcar, national etc

poumaro

I dissagree with clausar in some points.
First, huge companies don't take your problem (if exist) personal, because thay have much reputation and lot of work waiting. Small companies, most times will be friently serve you, because they need customers, and rely building their reputation.
But you must be very carefoul what the price include and ask to rent a car up to 3 years old.
Hope to help you.

Maria

Doh

I booked with Anna Cars on Crete in April based on research on this board and others and it was a very good experience. My emails were answered promptly (and my questions were answered the first time I asked, which isn't always the case), the person dropped off the car at my hotel promptly, and it was a very nice, fairly new car. The price they quoted me was not the absolute cheapest I got, but it was competitive and all in all the experience was significantly better than when we rented through a large rental car company on the mainland.

james_mcdonald

Go ahead and book with http://www.rental-center-crete.com ! the most reliable and competitive car rental company I have hired with. We got an upgrade too, booked a Peugeot 207 and got a Focus!!!

dagreek

Club Cars Crete http://www.clubcars.net/ is reliable and with reasonable rates, I have not heard any complaints about them.
and for naxos Auto Tour http://www.naxosrentacar.com/en/ has great rates for weekly rentals as well.

travelerjan

In Naxos, which I've visited off season 11 times (may-June, September) we have always rented locally and just the day before using a car, and never never never had a problem. THere are 3 reliable car rental places right on the Naxos Town Square (I will never know why they call it a square, it's kind of a circle, with a fountain -- mainly dry -- in the middle). Just inquire in the car places, and take the one with the best price for the type of model you want. Don't over-engineer this task. You'll pay 30-35-40€ depending on insurance & get a nice newish car.

progol

I am looking for a car rental from 9/18 - 9/21, from Chania to Heraklion.

I contacted Anna cars about 2 weeks ago, and they told me they were completely booked! I also contacted Autoway, who responded quickly and said "no problem".

However, today I put in a request for that time and asked only that there be no obvious signage on the car (in another post, travelerjan mentioned that she had received one car with signage out of several rentals), and now "it's too short a rental time". I'm a bit perplexed and frustrated.

Anyone have a recommendation for a decent car rental place? I'm getting a little concerned now.

Paule

Julia_Alex

When driving in Crete, remember to look regularly on your mirrors, especially the side ones.
Cretan drivers tend to drive speedy, so try to accelerate, or stay at the right side of the road to let others overtake you.

If you want to rent a car in Crete, I recommend http://www.carantee.com. My brother hired a car from them and there provide excellent service, plus they have the best prices in the market.

Solwv

We were also looking for a rental car agency. We were six people including 2 children. The "international" agencies wanted to charge us for every single thing. I saw the comments above and we tried Anna Cars. They were brilliant. Much cheaper for similar size cars. We had full insurance, free child sits, and we were nit asked to pay anything until arrival. So we could have still switched last minute. But am glad we did not switch. They waited for us until midnight at arrivals (our flight was delayed), speedy service, we were in the road in 20 min. The car was brilliant, no problems at all and easy to drive even with six people and all the luggage. So thanks to those recommending Anna Cars above. I can only add to their recommendation.

galiciangirl

Perhaps consider http://www.tipoa.gr for any greek location ( switch to english )

mariha2912

Original post dates back on 2011 and was resurrected by a spammer.

yeshekathy

Do yourself a favour and contact Dimitris at autorentals crete [email protected]
He is THE best car rental person in Crete and the most helpful man there, (he and his lovely wife even put us up for a night when we arrived late at Easter!) and he will advise the best person to use if he can't provide a car for you.

In Naxos we have always used a car hire place just down the road from Mikes Bikes which is between St George Beach and the Chora - I think it might have been called Fun Cars. They were fabulous - gave us a great price, new cars and complete instructions on where to go and what to see on our three day tour of the island.

meuniere

This advise may be old but it is still fresh.
<MY advise is to rent only from the international well known companies and avoid local car rentals, no matter how tempting their offers can be.
Had many cases ( used to work as a rep for a german touroperator in my early 20s) where these companies overcharged people, especially after an accident.
or in other cases cars were crap and it took them ages to change the car or repair them, while people where waiting often in the middle of nowhere ( in Crete).>

Tips, always pay with a credit card and take out independent excess cover insurance, it will save you a fortune.