Auto Europa Car Rental Experiences
 

I am renting for 16 days in May. Pickup Malpensa, drop off Pisa airport. I found the best rates for an automatic on Auto Europa - Sicily by Car - way cheaper than any of the US sites. http://www.autoeuropa.it/en/prenotazioni/index.asp
Pick up at mxp is at desk in terminal 1; drop off at Pisa is at the terminal. I have a confirmation that includes CDW and theft protection, but I think the deductibles are high. To keep my reservation, they want a 20% deposit in euros by credit credit that can be cancelled up to 7 days before departure.

Has anyone used Sicily by Car through Auto Europa? Am I missing anything?

Have you tried economycarrentals.com? It offers rentals with no deductible and I found them cheaper than AutoEurope.com or Kemwel.com where their "basic" rates are not available.

I agree with Economy Car Rentals. I recently compared rates between ECR and AutoEurope and found that ECR was about half the price of AutoEurope with no excess and full insurance. I've been a long time renter with AutoEurope but I'm convinced that ECR is the better options, at least in Italy.

We rented a car via AAA office here in US for 2 week trip to Italy last fall.
AAA ended up being better bargain than online as some insurance costs were included. And they explained all of the costs.
AAA rented via Auto Europa.
Was the best value of our entire trip.

Auto Europa is cheaper than economycarrentals.com and AAA (comes up with Hertz and Budget).

Has anyone used the Italian site Auto Europa?

I recall seeing a thread about a year ago with major complaints against www.autoeuropa.com. The name ends with an A. Not to be confused with the highly regarded www.autoeurope.com, with an E.

Looking at both company websites they both show the same stylistic AE red dot logo. Perhaps they are part of the same company. I don't know.

Here's the thread with the complaints about AutoEuropa (aka Sicily by Car), rented through the US broker AutoEurope.

http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...al--beware.cfm

<i>Auto Europa is cheaper than economycarrentals.com and AAA (comes up with Hertz and Budget).</i>

But the original posting indicates a high deductible, which is not the case with economycarrentals.com.

J62,

The car was probably not rented through AutoEurope because it has a three day minimum rental. Unless the OP on the other thread was willing to pay for two extra days of rental, there was no broker. You're statement here about the OP renting via AutoEurope was not substantiated in the original thread.

j62 - read that thread and it seems like Auto Europa was the culprit, not Auto Europe.

Auto Europe's rates are 50% higher than booking with Avis directly. I think I used Auto Europe a few years a go without a problem, but their rates are sky high now.

I didn't re-read the entire thread. My main point (and the main takeway of that mis-titled, long thread for me) was that there are 2 companies with very similar names. Make sure you are clear about which company you are talking about.

Auto Europe will beat other prices if you call them and share the details. Make sure you are comparing apples to apples.

Thanks for all the help. I think I got it now. Avis had better rates, but higher deductibles than Auto Europe - so, yes, I was not comparing apples to apples. And Auto Europa had very high deductibles but the lowest rates and I guess not a good rep for customer service. So, I will go with Auto Europe, but they are asking me to give them cc info to prepay. I don't recall doing this a few years back. Has that been everyone's experience with AE?

IIRC AutoEurope asks you to prepay, they send you a voucher which you hand over to Avis, Hertz, or whomever they have arranged the car through.

In the past you could cancel without any penalty at any time, as long as you never used the voucher to pick up a car.Be sure to check out the cancellation policy.

You don't have to prepay with AutoEurope but that's the only way to guarantee the price they quoted you. If you don't prepay you will be given the current rate when you pick up the car.

Just got an email from AE saying that unless I prepay, I will have a voucher which is a quote, but not a confirmed reservation. The res can be cancelled without penalty up to 3 days before pickup date. Within 3 days, there is a $75 fee. The res is with Hertz btw.

Another piece to this, I have a res with Hertz (directly) which is several hundred dollars less than the Hertz with AE. But, the Hertz res doesn't list what the deductibles are. Another apples to apples dilemma. One should be a detective or an attorney to rent a car in Europe!

I am currently looking for quotes for a hire in Sardinia during July. AutoEurope (used previously) are the cheapest but have higher excesses on their CDW.

Oh God!

I have justed looked at the AutoEuropa website. Thought I recognised the name.

We rented from them in Sicily. Nightmare.

A dangerous car (brakes), totally off hand staff, and a fuel surcharge of a full tank becuase the tank was around e5 short of full. It was Sunday and we couldn't find a petrol station that was open. There were other issues which I can't recall.

We said never again. Along with Thrifty.

Never had a problem with AutoEurope although they are only brokers.

Are excesses what I refer to as the deductible?

Yes, I believe the excesses are what you are referring to as the deductible.

I would call to find out what exactly your are getting from Hertz and then call AutoEurope. I had gotten a better quote from Hertz (using a discount code) that included the CDW (with a 300 euro deductible) and all the other taxes and insurances.

Then I called AE and they matched the rate from Hertz, plus included the zero excess (no deductible) coverage. The only thing AE could not include was the road tax (2-3 euros/day), so they subtracted the estimated amount from the rate.

BTW, I'm typically of the mindset that everything is easier & cheaper to handle on the internet. But in this case a little time spent on the phone saved me A LOT of money.

Also, as someone mentioned, you have to prepay with AE to guarantee your rate, but changes/cancellations are allowed up to 3 days before. A few weeks after I booked I had to change my drop off point from Orvieto to Rome. AE handled it without a problem, it it didn't have any effect on my super rate either.

Also, when you prepay it's in U.S. dollars. So there are no exchange rates or foreign transactions fees to have to consider.

Yes - Excess = Deductible. Same thing.

CPG; Consider, a deductable 'with excess' can mean a deductable of anywhere between 1000 and 1700 euros, depending upon the auto company. With NO EXCESS, it could mean a deductable of 200 euros or a bit more.

Well, of course a company can't guarantee the rental price unless you prepay - it's all about exchange rates. That said, in the hundreds of rentals I've done with AutoEurope, they have never made me pay more than one-third upon booking, with the rest paid when I picked up the car

StCirq - how do you manage to only pay 1/3 upon booking? This was not offered to me when I spoke to Kemwel but then again, I didn't inquire. When you say "with the rest paid when I picked up the car" - do you mean you paid the car rental company on the spot or Autoeurope charged your credit card once it knew you had picked up the car?

A few years ago, I booked with Autoeurope in about March for a June (could have been Sept) rental. I've rented 30-40 cars from them. Around May, I called back annd asked if their rates had dropped. They had, and they re-did my rental & lowered the cost by around $100 (I was renting for about 4 weeks).

Call them and ask for a AAA discount, but they may not give you additional discounts if they have already discounted your price to match a competitor. Check their "other" company, Kemwel. Don't need to call Kemwel seperately - just ask the AutoEurope person for a Kemwel quote.

There may be "road/pickup/automatic transmission clean air" fees you'll pay to the actual "owner" of the car upon completion of your rental, in addition to the "basic" rental cost you'll pay AutoEurope.

Stu Dudley

<i>That said, in the hundreds of rentals I've done with AutoEurope, they have never made me pay more than one-third upon booking, with the rest paid when I picked up the car</i>

I've always paid in full, which is understandable as the quoted price is in dollars and AutoEurope can't guarantee an exchange rate. Assuming that one would not wish to pre-pay, must we request a partial payment contract?

And I forgot: EconomyCarRentals.com only charges its fee, the rest is paid to the agency itself, but the price is given in euros.

Thanks for all the helpful info. I am going to call AE and Hertz to clarify things, but I do know this: the Hertz res is in euros and the AE quote (Hertz) is in dollars payable in full. The AE quote says that the deductibles are approx 300 euros.

CPG: I have rented many times through Auro Europe and will likely do so again for a trip late next month. I have always paid in full at the time of booking.

I have been comparing various rental car sites and it appears that economycarrentals.com beats every price from any other site even autoeuropa as stated above. In fact autoeuropa was showing a deductible of 1200 euro + vat for damage & theft whereas economy claims zero deductible.

Has anyone actually used economycarrentals.com?

I've used economycarrentals.com in Turkey and Sicily. Never had any problems, but then never had any damage. Others have reported good service on damage refund.

Angela: Do you mean AutoEurope or AutoEuropa?

EK: the OP mentioned a great rate from Auto Europa using their Italian site and granted when I checked their rates they were cheaper than Auto Europe, but still several $ more than economycarrentals.com. Plus, the deductibles were incredibly high, IMO, whereas economycar states $0 deductible/excess.

I just read your other thread about car rentals and I, too, am stuck as to whether to pay more for peace of mind and exemplary service (AutoEurope) or go with the cheaper economycarrental.com.

Michael: thank you for your feedback, but since I have some time I'm still considering both companies.

I just avoided a nightmare with AutoEuropa. I booked an Automatic car through ArgusCarRentals for April 1-14 in Milan and the car company was AutoEuropa/SicilyByCar. I was getting all my paperwork together today when I noticed that the confirmation didn't say whether the car (in this case a Nissan Qashqai) was Automatic. I started to get a bad feeling so I decided to contact Argus.

On the phone the Argus rep told me that it was an Automatic but that wasn't even for me since I didn't trust not having it confirmed on paper. I requested that he send me an email confirming it was an Automatic.

Still not satisfied, I decided to contact AutoEuropa directly and was able to get the local telephone number to confirm:

Aeroporto Malpensa - Desk in Terminal 1
Tel.02/58581048 (Cell.348/3736277)

As I expected, the car they had reserved for me was Manual, not Automatic. While on the phone with them, the Argus rep called to tell me the same thing. I asked him what they could do about it (find me a similar Automatic MPV) and see said he could only send it to his supervisor. I'm certain he'll decide just to cancel the reservation rather than take a loss on a more expensive rate right now (I got it back in December).

Anyway, thanks to the people who posted about EconomyCarRentals.com I've already booked a similar (although not as good) Mercedes A Class/Lancia Musa for a little less than my original reservation.

I'm not sure how much to blame Argus since it was AutoEuropa that accepted a rate for an Automatic when they had the intention the whole time of renting a Manual. Very shady company and I recommend avoiding any company that does business with AutoEuropa - namely ArgusCarRentals.com.

If Argus does come through on this, I definitely will edit my post to give them credit.

ECR doesn't seem that great either, here's their excess refund policy:

"In order to refund any excess, we need you to strictly follow the instructions below :
You have to inform the car rental company. In case of theft or damage or an accident with somebody else, you have to contact the police and take a written report. When you return the car, you also have to make a theft or/ and a damage report with the car rental company.
To get back the excess, you have to send the following documents to EconomyCarRentals.com by post:

* Theft / damage report and police report. Vehicle must never be removed from the place of accident until the police report has been completed. In case of any accident to the car, you must immediately contact the nearest police station and make an accident report. If you do not report it to the police and comply with the requirements under the country's law, the insurance becomes invalid. The report should state if there was any influence of alcohol or drugs. It is essential that you also report any accident or damage to the Car Rental Company. In case of other damages to the rented car, the above procedure should also be followed. If the vehicle is damaged while parked, you have to report the damage to the police and to the car rental company before the car is moved.
* Copy of the rental agreement / contract.
* Receipts of payment, to prove how much you have paid, and your credit card statement where we can see the amount that was taken from your credit card."

Let me get this straight...I'm parked somewhere, someone dings the car and I'm supposed to find an Italian police officer and have them make a report? Are they joking? I don't know how it works in Italy, but in Los Angeles you can't even get a police officer to respond to a serious crash unless someone is hurt or public property is damaged. Yet, I'm suppose to get an Italian officer to do this in spite of my terrible use of the Italian language? Not to mention I'll probably be in a hurry to get to my next destination.

I just called ECR about these questions and the rep told me to call the police and wait for them to come right a police report. Then I asked what to do if they do not show up or refuse to come out (like LA). She said then that I should drive the car to the police station to get a police report. I then asked how can I do that if it says on your website that moving the car prior to getting a police report will result in ECR not covering the damage. She said if you have no other choice then that's what you need to do and ECR will cover it. My take? Yeah, right...

Officially ECR seems questionable. But in practice others have reported no problems in getting a refund. Doing a search on this forum on EconomyCarRentals might be useful.

I rented a car from AUTO-EUROPA not to be confused with AUTO EUROPE... I had the car for 10 days and was run off of a windy road in the mountains by an idiot overtaking another car where it was clearly not safe to do so. i ended up having to run off the road to avoid a head on collision. The culprit did not stop and there was damage to the front end due to a small tree. The car still ran fine so I continued driving it and returned it to the the Genoa airport and filled out a damage report. The rental agreement showed i had purchased the CDW insurance that clearly stated that the extra insurance i purchased covered all of the costs with a $0 deductible. The man at the counter also said "Don't worry about it, it won't cost you anything, the insurance you purchased covers everything". Two months later i get a charge of $5,541.49 on my AMEX statements for repairs to the car!!!! When I disputed the charges, a false document was produced with a fake signature that said I agreed to pay for the repairs!!! This letter was dated 29 days after I returned to the USA. Even the false repair document was prepared a day before i returned the car. This is still under review by AMEX.... DO NOT RENT FROM THIS COMPANY!!!

!! Auto Europa = SicilyByCar = CROOKS !!!

We did rent a Fiat car at Catania airport (Sicily) for a week from June 30th to July 7th. The company is Sicily By Car, with prior reservation online via AutEuropa. You do not know the company that is renting the car before you pay online, and once you’ve paid it’s too late, you’ll have to deal with Sicily By Car !

No way to really check the car because it was night and no, or weak, lighting on the parking area !
Minor trace found on the car and a tank not full, 3/4 only.
When coming back a week later we found a tyre was damaged. I can’t assume it was damaged prior the rent so I certainly have to pay for it.

Problem is they charged my card a week later for 2 tyres !!!!! and with explanations and receipt more than a month later only, because I asked the company, otherwise they just do not give any information !

My suggestion is DO NOT RENT FROM AUTOEUROA / SICILY BY CAR

Go to major companies, in the end you pay less !

Take this as an advice for those like me who do not want these crooks going on with their business;

VISIT http://www.gdf.gov.it the website of Guardia di Finanza the Italian national police specialised in ripp-off and file a complain.

DO NOT RENT with AUTOEUROPA and SICILY by CAR