Car rental experience
 

I am in the process of renting cars for our trip to Europe. I can report that www.economycarrentals.com is much cheaper than Kemwel when renting a car in Poland and returning the car to the original location. Kemwel's rate has a deductible, Economy Car's does not. I'll give the actual rate in my trip report in about six months.

But my original intent was to discuss Kemwel vs. Autoeurope. I plan to rent two cars in France because I'll be staying there more than 31 days and my Visa card does not carry the CDW (with no deductible) for more than 31 days at a time. The first rental, starting in Paris, would cost $322 from Kemwel and $345 from Autoeurope. The second rental starting in Périgueux would cost $358 from Kemwel and $383 from Autoeurope. Back in December I received an e-mail from both companies giving me vouchers toward my next rental. I applied the $30 Kemwel voucher by clicking on it for the Périgueux rental and got the car for $328. I tried the same thing for the Paris rental with Autoeurope (they are sister companies using the same telephone personnel in off-hours) and the price was the same as when searching the internet. I called, and after consultation with the supervisor, the person on the phone told me that the voucher was only good for telephone orders which would cost originally $389 rather than $345, so that the on-line price is cheaper than the phone price with the discount. I am questioning this, but have not yet received a response from the higher ups.

Kemwel seems to give better service.

Autoeurope usually meets the competition's price (in my experience) when you show them the deal you've got. We've usually used AutoEurope and been totally pleased with my experiences with them. The only other we've rented from has been Avis, but that was when I was traveling for work and had all kinds of frequency points, etc.

AutoEurope meets competitors' prices, but once they give you the name of the rental company (often Europcar), the rental company will usually match the rate you are given to avoid paying commission to AutoEurope or Kemwel.

One thing that many of us do in Europe is to shop around on the national sites of AutoEurope (using the country suffixes -- .fr, .be, .es, .de, .it. etc....) because the rates can be extremely variable. The main thing to know is that the country site where you are renting is generally more expensive than in the neighboring countries -- i.e., if you are renting in France, the rate will be higher on www.autoeurope.fr than on www.autoeurope.es or www.autoeurope.nl although they are all priced in euros.

It is completely legal to rent from any of these sites due to the unified market of the EU, and my usual rental agents at Europcar Gare du Nord have confirmed this -- they often get cheaper rates from foreign AutoEurope sites than using their own 30% corporate discount for car rentals when they are going on holiday.

I have rented an auto in Europe countless times.

After checking with the various companies, I usually will find a competitive rate using Hertz.

I find Hertz's service to be superior, and their locations are usually on-site of an airport.

Be careful about booking around Autoeurope. Direct bookings may include such things as mileage charges which can add greatly to your overall rental cost. Direct bookings may not give you same flexibility to cancel your reservation at the last minute, something I have needed to do in the past due to an unforeseen transportation strike and corresponding unavailability of gasoline.

Picking up a rental at an airport or train station will automatically trigger a location surcharge, typically 40€. Hertz, and often Avis as well, will charge you extra if the in France pickup/drop off locations differ. Other companies such as Europcar, Sixt, or Citer, will not. I have gone out of my way to avoid Hertz for this very reason.

Given the length of your stay you could lease a car instead of renting--check on Renault and Peugeot terms.

I have been renting for years. Autoeurope usually has the lowest price for France, but their European branches usually have limited mileage, and/or include the CDW. As a US resident, it turns out that in France, Autoeurope or Kemwel offer the best deal if one is willing to have the CDW carried by the credit card. No one way charge, BTW.

Leasing is simply not worth the price. For the time I am renting in France (June 2 to July 10) I can get two rentals for less than the minimum 17 day lease--less than $1000. My daily rental on Kemwel is less than what the lease would charge on a per day basis after the first 17 days. A long term lease is only worthwhile if one compares it to a rental with full insurance including no deductible, which is about twice as much as what I am paying. However, if one insists on an automatic, all bets are off, and I have not checked those prices.

The locations charges and road fund/vehicle license fees not included in auto europes rates are slightly misleading though. If searching on kayak for example and they show as the cheapest, when in fact they might not be.

I love Avis, they never block your money if you pay the excess, unles most other car companies, you pay for the access and still find a considerable amount of money blocked without you even being notified, they do it everywhere in Europe

AutoEurope.fr never has station or airport charges added on. that seems to be a specialty of AutoEurope.com

Autoeurope has absolutely nothing to do with road taxes, location surcharges, environmental fees, or insurance coverages. These are levied by either the French government or the rental companies. I have seen no evidence that booking through one site vs. another eliminates them but it might alter how they are collected.

As has been pointed out, when booking through autoeurope.com these fees are paid separately at the time of drop off.

Yes, that was my point. The French site gives you the real total price up front in one lump rather than surprising you with new fees later.

Michael - I have rented through Autoeurope and got Europcar in France at least 2 times in the last 1.5 years and HAVE been charged a one-way drop-off!

One way to a small town?

Once was Dijon to Nice, the other was Lille to Limoges...

Most country sites will give you a "fully inclusive" price - including location fees, VLF/RFT. On the .com site you may actually find one or two cars that include it, but not many. I've complained about this to kayak and now holidayautos.com, who done a similar practice,now included it in their rate as well.

jamikins - do you always book through one site, i.e .com? If booking through some of the other country sites may bring about a one way charge (but overall rate may still be cheaper!). This definitely happens to destination UK, where there's no one way fee on .com but there is on .co.uk

Generally, Autoeurope will steer you to rental companies that do not charge a one way fee: Europcar, Citer, or Sixt are examples. However in some markets, you might have no choice but to rent from Hertz or Avis which will charge one way fees for pickup/drop off in France.

jamlkins - where the one way fees you paid from either Hertz or Avis?

Nope they were from Europcar.

And I called because I didnt want to pay the one way fee and asked for a provider that doesnt charge one and they said they are all starting to charge it and in these two cases there were no providers not charging it.

jamikins - wow, not good news.

Europcar and Hertz have never charged me one way fees to or from Avignon, Strasbourg, Montpellier, Nancy, Paris, Lille, Metz... or even Luxembourg.

Make sure that breaking up your rentals into 2 accomplishes what you want; some credit cards don't allow this to get around their 31 day limit. You'd have to either have a day or more between them to break them up, or use 2 different cards.

I anticipate about $100 in extra charges for each rental.

Kerouac,

Last year I tried to avoid the RR station fee by specifying a city agency. That would have been Herz and there was a one way charge which would have been more than the RR station pick-up charge.

I am very impressed with the services of Economy Car Rentals, they are the best value for money car hire. I have used them when i last visited Paris. I had to use their damage insurance after slightly damaging the hire car. I paid the excess and then claimed this back from Economy car rentals which they fully refunded.

In my experience, Economy Car Rentals has always been more expensive in France than Kemwel/Autoeurope if using their "basic" rate, and especially for one way rentals. There is no alternative to comparing the prices on-line.

JP,

I checked; it does.

I will continue to say that if you use the <b>French</b> site of the rental companies, you will not be surprised with station or airport charges at the end. It is illegal to "hide" charges in France.

The various fees and taxes that one can pay when booking through Autoeurope are not really hidden. They are clearly explained on the voucher given to each customer.

Problems arrive because all too many do not read the voucher and have expectations were are simply unrealistic.

Autoeurope straightened out the problem, and I got my $30 coupon. All told I am paying $643 for car rentals (Twingo or equivalent) lasting from Jun 2 to July 10, with my VISA card carrying the CDW with no deductible. The total coat after the added road tax and RR station fee will probably be closer to $800+.

Lately Avis have been giving good deals in Europe, especial car rentals in France and Italy.

Many car hir companies like Budget, Hertz etc, in Europe block money from your credit card as an extra guarantee even though you pay for excess insurance. So be careful if you have a strict budget and can't transfer money from another account whilst on holiday. Nowadays we use a credit card just for car hire, and put in cost of car hire plus make allowance for excess insurance, which you have to pay at office at time of booking, so that we would know if they are blocking extra money for us from our credit card. Of course, that blocked money would be dropped if everything is fine, and no accident happened during trip, but it can get you short of money during the holiday, especially because on one holiday a car hire company blocked over a thousand euros for us from our credit card. Avis is one of the very few companies that never blocked money for us, at least till our last holiday in December. Of course we always paid for excess daily insurance.

Make this clear at any car hire booking office.

Actually, I hit a payment card ceiling once because of that. I had rented three cars cars from Europcar in the same month, and the deductible guarantee stayed in place. When my card started being rejected when I tried to use it in shops, I called the bank, and they explained what had happened -- and they bumped up my credit another 1000€ to compensate until the other guarantees expired.

I always have two cards anyway just in case there is a problem with one of them far from home.

I have had good luck with www.economycarrentals.com as well. The only place I will not use them is in the South of Portugal. I have also had good luck with rentalcars.com Autoeurope and Kemwel always seem to be more spendy, but that could just be a function of where I was renting.

I do recommend going for cars that have no excess.