Here is a pretty good article for you to read:

http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel...chi-travel-hed

Liability (3rd Party) is mandatory and included in price. I would check it, though.

Be careful with some of the policies that you can putchase..Travel Guard, etc. Some of the rental car companies do not honor them. I would check that out before buying it and finding that it is no good!!

I prefer the lease buy back...everything covered 100%. That is the ONLY way for me.

grace - thank you for the article. This breaks it down and confirms what I have been told. I will make the final decision on the lease/buy back plan after I read the liability agreement, etc. when we get there. We reserved with our VISA, so that is a start.

Thanks again. It was a very informative article.

emh

I thought the article was well done.

Here is the Kemwel lease buy back site:

http://www.kemwel.com/buyback_home.cfm

I think they have merged with Auto Europe.

You have to make arrangements here, in advance. I used it last fall for a trip. Picked it up upon arrival in Toulouse and dropped it off before departure in Biarritz. I had it for 16 days....price was better than a rental...and 100% covered in every way..no last minute fill up..the way to go unless you only need a car for a few days...

I have difficulty believing that the buy back program is cheaper for 17 days (that's the minimum) than an ordinary rental. I just checked Kemwel, and the lease costs $928. A rental from Autoeurope UK costs ?268 (about $530) for the same period of time, same one way pick-up and drop-off. In both cases I specified the smallest car available. Am I missing something?

The question mark should be a GBP pound sign.

When I did my Kemwel lease for trip in Sept/Oct. I checked the lease against the rental. I used the automatic, A/C vehicle as that is what I drive. I also added the CDW to the rental. The Kemwel leaseback was considerably cheaper. I, of course, do not have those figuers available at this time. Someone else recenly ran into the same thing and mentioned it. Maybe it is because you are using the cheapest vehicles etc....

I just checked and it is cheaper for the Kemwel lease buy back....$970.27 against $1234.15 for a rental from Auto Europe...Automatic and A/C...even the rental without CDW was $1134.91...easy to check....

I guess that anyone wishing an automatic will have to pay an enormous premium when renting. BTW, last year I upgraded because I wanted to make sure that I had AC, and when I picked up the car the agent at Europcar told me that all their cars, no matter the size, had AC.