Long-range planning: Car rental prices
 

Because I want to use airline miles for plane tickets, I'll be making some plans for summer 2018 pretty soon.

With car rentals, I have found in recent years -- traveling to France and the UK -- that the sooner I make a reservation, the better the prices. They only rise with the passage of time.

But a while back, when I went to Italy more often, I used to make the car rental reservation early and check prices right up until I left home. Most of the time, the rental price would drop and I would end up saving a good bit of money on the original price.

Just another change over the years? Or standard differences between French v. Italian car rental in general?

What has your experience been?

1. Car rental prices are extremely variable. You never know what to expect before you start looking. www.autoeurope.com will display the prices of at least 8 different companies in order of cost. Sometimes, after checking AutoEurope, the direct reservation sites and numbers of the actual car rental companies will match or undercut the AutoEurope price.

2. Don't ever plan to drop off the car in a different country from the one where you rented it. International drop off charges can be huge -- or they can be waived if you keep a car for more than two weeks and leave it in a big city where it has a good chance of going back where it belongs in the next rental.

I've never seen a case where car rental prices go down the closer to the date, in any country. I haven't rented a car in Italy, if that was their custom, I think it's very unusual. I rent a car a lot in the US, for example, and that isn't true in the US, either, it's just like train tickets, air fare, etc. Prices go up closer to the date. Same for France, where I have rented cars.

I'm sure you can find some fluke instance where prices drop closer to the date for some particular location or date, but I don't think that's the norm. Now I'm not talking about comparing prices from a year ahead as I never would book hotels or car rentals that far in advance, so I'm not sure what that would be like.

In addition to the multi-country drop off charges mentioned by kybourbon, also watch for possible one-way charges within a single country. The one-way itinerary may make more sense to your plans even with the charges, but you'll want to know everything when comparing overall costs.

Thank you all for your responses. I always use autoeurope.com; it never occurred to me that the rental companies' own sites would undercut AE prices.

I've actually looked at rental dates almost a year from now, and I'm astonished at the difference in price between France (cheap) and Italy (expensive). I know the Italian rentals have insurance included, but still...

Thanks again.

Yes, car rental in Italy is more expensive than many other European countries.
Like you I always use AutoEurope and find their customer service outstanding. They will generally match any price you get elsewhere. I would go with them just for their customer service.

I also book car rentals far out and keep checking. Sometimes the rate goes down as the time goes by, it seems to be variable and I'm sure related to how busy places get.

Be careful booking a pick up at the airport. Their additional fees can be quite high depending upon the airport.

<i> I always use autoeurope.com; it never occurred to me that the rental companies' own sites would undercut AE prices.</i>

Saying Company A is cheaper than Company B is always easy. However, the quoted price of an auto rental has many variables: unlimited mileage vs. costs per mile, additional driver fees, road taxes, environmental fees, one-way (in France) charges, location surcharges and a host of others.

Simply stating that one company is cheaper than another without explaining all of the detail is meaningless.