My husband and I will be renting a car in Venice and heading north for 5 days in January and need advice on who to rent from. Fodor threads have said to rent the car stateside. Who is the most reliable to use? We will need to drop the car in the early am before any rental offices are open as our plane leaves Venice at 6:30 a.m. (ugh!) We want to use a company that won't sting us and also good rates.

www.autoeurope.com will put you with a good company with a good rate.

Other good sources are

www.its-cars-hotels.com
www.kemwel.com

or

www.travelocity.com (for rate comparisons)

By the way, five days is a "not" sweet spot for car rental rates - - costs the same as 7. But worse is the one day rental rate.

Best wishes.

Rex

Rex,
Thanks for the tips.

I too have had a number of good experiences using AutoEurope. They are a broker, and you will end up with a car from a known company, like Avis. Not a fly by night operation

Also Nova Rentacar
www.rentacar-europe.com

Shop around a bit--no one company has the best rates everywhere, everytime.

It is my understanding that AutoEurope will match any lower rate you might find. We have found AutoEurope's rates best and dealing with them is great. We last used them last year in Italy, picking up our car in Rome and dropping it in Venice at Piazzale Roma. Both a Vaporetto stop and water taxi station were steps away. Had it not been pouring rain, it would have been very convenient to get from the drop-off point to transportation to our hotel.