malan

I need help finding the most reliable car rental agency for travel from Stuttgart, Germany to Paris, France(or locations near Auxeree or Avallon). Please recommend on price, ease of reservations or best website. I need the rental for 7 days and will be traveling with a total of 4 people. Any suggestions welcome.

janisj

Most of the well known agencies will book this--but you will <u>pay through the nose</u> no matter which one you use.

Collecting a car in one country and dropping it in another can more than double the rental cost.

Start w/ autoeurope and kemwel- both are brokers and deal w/ many rental companies.

zeppole

You should price comparison all the brand-name agencies, and go directly to them as well contacting brokers, and see if you can drive the price down through bargaining.

"Paying through the nose" is a subjective term in travel. You may or may not find the surcharge worth it in your individual case compared with other options or for speed of travel. How would anybody here know? Not everybody is the typical tourist or the average Fodor's traveler.

janisj

Well, miss Z, since the OP did mention <u>price</u>, I thought it only fair to warn that drop off charges will be huge (or at least very large)

ira

Hi M,

Were I doing this, I would take the train from Stuttgart to Strasbourg (see www.bahn.de) and plan my trip from there in a car rented in France.

janisj

ira has the right idea. Renting a car and returning it in the same country will save you hundreds of $$/€€

Some folks even rent a car in one country, tour around and return it as they are leaving that country. Then take a train to the next country and collect another rental car there. They go to all that trouble because inter-country drop off fees can be so high.

Alec

With Germany and France, where there is a considerable cross-border traffic, you often don't have to do that.
Some rental agencies allow drop-off and pick-up in Strassbourg from German to French car (and vice versa) with a minimum of fuss and expense. The way they do is you can drop off either a French or German car without incurring cross-border fee, and pick up another car registered in the country you'll be turning in eventually. Try booking two rentals, one to Strassbourg and another from Strassbourg.

Louie_LI

Try Europcar. They often have very reasonable cross-border drop off fees (€50 or so) or sometimes none at all. I don't consider that huge. And since sometimes you can get a much better daily rate for longer rentals, a small drop fee may be a better choice than two short rentals.

LeoKarlo

Just some piece of friendly advice...know first the total cost of renting a car straight from a rental company itself, like AVIS, Europcar, Dollar..its better to compare price. I use price line and Expedia and Vroomvroomvroom.com..they let you compare prices first so that you can have the best deals possible.