Has anyone else noticed a substantial increase in rates lately? When I first started planning our trip 2 months ago, a 1 week rental of a Renault Laguna diesel worked out to $38 per day. A few weeks later, I looked again, and the rate was $43 per day. I hoped that was just a fluctuation and it would go back down. I just check the price again, and it is now $61 per day. Does anyone know what is going on? We planned to rent a car for a week to explore Burgundy, and I am shocked by how much prices have increased in such a short period of time. (I wish I had booked at the initial rates, but our dates weren't firm at that time.)

Have you tried calling them? They are usually pretty good to work with, and seem to be willing to help with pricing.

I booked my car rental months ago with Auto Europe and my rate is $61.00 a day. I thought that was pretty good, considering my friend booked thru Hertz in the states for her trip to Italy, and it cost her $77 a day........
Maybe I got a bad rate...........

Try novacarhire.com, I used them in Spain last year and this year later this month in France 8 days $268 thanks to a tip from Ira on this forum. It is a Europecar like last year.

StevenG,
You didn't have a problem with them? I've never heard of them.....

My rate: $524 for 7 days p/u FCO d/o Lucca. Alpha Romeo 147, manual with A/C = $75/day.

I think I'm going to try novacarhire.com too!

Anyone else have any rates to share?

I just checked Nova Car Hire online for the days I'm traveling and it is 100 dollars cheaper...... I'm going to call AutoEurope tomorrow to see if they will match the rate. If not, I'm switching.......

I just checked too. I'm not a car expert, but the Alpha Romeo 147 is a "compact" on europecar, and this compares to a VW Golf 1.6 Confortline (I think) on novacar.

The Alpha on europecar is $524 and the Golf on novacar is $698. A Fiat Punto 1.2 5-door "sub compact" on nova is $633.

What am I doing wrong???

PS The the reference to "europecar" should read "AutoEurope."

SORYY about that!