My husband and I are planning a trip to Austria and Germany this July. Any fav car rentals or ones to stay clear of? Any pitfalls or no-no's? Love to drive! Jude

You will need an Internationl Driver's License to drive a car in Austria unless they changed the rules since last June.
Also, you will need a highway sticker. For the life of me I cannot remember exactly what it is called.

It's called a "vignette".

More &quot;veterans&quot; than not swear by www.autoeurope.com as a source to start with, and you may not need to do much (or any) comparison shopping against them. Be aware that they are <i>brokers</i> who will still put you with a &quot;major&quot; car rental source at better rates than you can get on your own (i.e., Avis, Europcar/National, Budget, etc) - - they don't actually have any cars to rent of their own.

Best wishes,

Rex

Also check with www.novarentacar.com and www.gemut.com.

About car rentals again...it seems that not any of the big companies will guarantee us what we want..a diesel.They all say they can't guarantee any particular car...just the class. Seems odd.

Many of us here would recommend AutoEurope.

We've had good experiences with AutoEurope and Avis. Avoid Hertz like the plague!

Another thumbs up for AutoEurope. I usually go to the website (autoeurope.com, check out the offers there, and then phone their 800 number to talk to a live human being to book. Check with Andrew Bestor at gemut.com. He uses AE also, and can sometimes get a better rate. AE won't promise you a diesel either, but you'll probably get one. Booking a stick shift will be much less expensive than an automatic.

Avoid National. A coworker rented a car in Europe from them and they charged him more than what was reserved online.

I've had good experiences with Autoeurope, Avis, and Hertz. Just do your research and understand options for insurance.

Hi grebbs,

In Germany and Austria, you can decline the CDW and use the insurance coverage from your credit card.

If you pick up in one country and drop off in another you will pay a very high dropoff charge.

If you go with Autoeurope (and I use them alot) be sure to call the 800 number as Betsy said. I always seem to get a better deal when I call than I do on the web site.

Just returned from trip to Central Europe. We rented from gemut.com, which got us an Avis car via AutoEurope (not as complex as it sounds). Reserved it in March, I think, for May trip; requested diesel, told no guarantee of same, worried about it; when we got the car it was a diesel. A Ford Focus. &lt;3 horsepower in 1st gear below 1000 rpm, but still a diesel.

If you are flying into Frankfurt, you might look into picking up your car at Kelsterbach. It's a short taxi ride from the Airport (around 15 Euro) and you will save the 19% airport tax. We rented thru AutoEurope but picked up the car from Avis. We got a new diesel Opel Astra which was great.

IF you check the AutoEurope website put in Frankfurt Airport for your pickup and return location and then put in Kelsterbach for the pickup location and Frankfurt Airport for the return. You can see how much the difference would be and the various cars available. For a 2 week period, we saved about $75 after figuring in the taxi fare.

We've also done well with www.novarentacar.com or 1-866-NOVACAR

I've heard good things about novarentacar also, plus autoeurope will match their rate.

Yet another thumbs up for AutoEurope. If you're renting for 17 days or longer, it usually pays to lease. We've had 2 good lease experiences with Renault, www.renaultusa.com. Auto Europe also has a lease, or buy-back, plan.

Wow quite a price difference between picking up at Munich airport and in the city.
Anyone know of the best off airport pick up to get to easy by train or bus?

Re Kelsterbach and off-airport pickups:

2 years ago we saved money by picking up off-airport at Frankfurt BUT the modest cab fare, which would have been well offset by the savings, was reduced due to the cab driver not being able to find the address.
I should have known to print a Michelin map of the location in advance.

It wasn't the easiest place to find and our taxi driver had a little problem at first. But I figure it only cost us a couple of extra Euro so we still saved a bunch. A map would be a good idea.