Car Rental Return Montpellier Rail Station
 

Hiring a car to tour France in September/October, and planning to return it to Montpellier St-Roch railway station so as to catch a train from there to Barcelona. Uncertain at this stage whether it'll be Avis or Europcar. If Avis, the car drop-off/parking point is advertised as being in the Gare St-Roch car park on Rue Catalan. This looks like a public car park. I've Google street-viewed it, and the sign seems to say you get 15 minutes free parking, after which you incur parking charges. Signage is unclear as to exactly where in the car park you go if returning a rental car. Avis's own website is no help either.

Has anyone reading this post had personal experience of the Montpellier St-Roch rental car drop-off location that they might be able to share with me? Thanks...

When I returned a car in 2011, the rental return area for Europcar, from whom I had rented, was indeed a large car-park across from the station, though the office was located within the station building.

When returning the car, you get a ticket going through boom gate, as I recall but off course you don't need to pay it because you are not leaving (If you are, they give you a ticket to put in the machine to raise the boom. The rental companies have their own section of the car park.

I remember having a bit of trouble locating the entry to the carpark and it being stressful but partly because I had need to change cars unexpectedly(long story!) and hadn't done the research you obviously have

The car return spot has moved around within the last couple of years. When we returned our Europcar in July 2015, it was in a large car parking area that was a tad below street level and southeast of the train station. In Sept a friend returned a car there & it was in a completely different spot.

We got horribly lost trying to return our car. You can not drive into Old Montpellier, and many streets around Old Montpellier are one way. I drove over a bridge that was "taxi & bus only" to get to the return spot. Have a good GPS and allow a lot of time to return the car. However, our friends in Sept had no problems at all.

Stu Dudley

I agree that Montpellier is a bit confusing but perhaps they have "fixed" it since I was there last summer and construction was continuing. I assume that all of the rental cars are in the big car park structure next to the station, but access to it is not obvious, as Stu pointed out. However, once you have spotted the station and the car park, you will find a way to get to it sooner or later. I think I crossed that damned bridge twice before figuring things out.

Call the rental office, they're used to explaining this again and again.