Rental Cars in Portugal - Expensive?
 

Although not going until next autumn, I thought for fun I'd check out prices today for this fall, picking up in Lisbon and dropping in Porto (about 12 days). I couldn't believe it when I saw for four persons it would set us back more than 1,000 euros on Auto Europe (twice what we paid in Italy last year for same amount of time). I did find a company named Auto Jardim that was about 500 euros. For those who have rented a car in Portugal, is it really that much higher?

In 2015 our six day rental Lisbon to Lisbon was $216. Compared to Spain: Seville to Malaga for four days @ $96 it was a bit higher but not what you are seeing. Wow...don't know why it would be that much. Both of our rentals were through Auto Europe.

What type of vehicle are we talking about?
Automatic or manual?
A dummy search on Autoeurope for 12 day rental Lisbon airport > Porto airport results in quotes of around €300 for a small car.
But larger vehicles can be substantially more expensive, that is correct.
IME, the prices for sub-compact to compact cars are really competitive in the South, for larger cars not so much.

What type of car? We are renting a Mégane or equivalent for 12 days for $383 in May; fine for three, probably tight for four. But we are having the CDW carried by my credit card. I also know that one car category higher almost doubles the price. So if you are looking for a larger car, and with automatic transmission (mine is manual), and with a no deductible insurance, the cost will probably be close to what you are quoting. Just checked prices. They are higher in September than in May ($150+ more than what we are paying for the same car), and a mid-size car comes close to $1000.

Real bargains in Portugal are from local suppliers, but since you want one-way rental Lisbon to Porto, you have to go by international/national operators, that typically charge a lot more. Plus, as stated, larger cars/automatic etc add to the cost.

In Portugal we rented from Auto Jardim a few times, and from Centauro. We have CDW by a separate 'car hire excess' year policy (https://www.worldwideinsure.com/car-hire-excess-insurance.php), so we always have to leave a deposit. Insurance by the rental company is way, way, too expensive.

Re prices you have to check back almost daily. Centauro adjusts its prices on an almost daily basis. What do I do? I book and I check again after a few days. If they have a better offer, I cancel and I rebook the better offer. Example: for our 2 weeks April trip to Mallorca I booked a car (Fiat 500) in January for 189 euro. I checked back many times and a month later the price had dropped to 102 euro. Last week I canceled again and the same car is now 58 (fifty-eight) euro, incl. second driver!

Just keep spinning the rental car roulette, better prices will eventually show up. In 2016 we had 3 different rentals in Portugal, all with different pic-up/drop-off locations:

- Lisbon to Faro/Tavira, (we dropped of the car so that we could take a detour by bus to Sevilla) for 7 days price was $143
- Faro to Porto for 21 days cost $379 (we stayed in Porto for 2 weeks)
- Porto to Lisbon for 7 days cost $198

Just FYI: We included several detours into Spain during the 21 days we had that car. Keep in mind that Portuguese cars are equipped with the highway transponders so driving them into Spain is not a problem. The other way around is. Most of the MANY tolls in Portuguese highways are unmanned or just sensors that read the transponders with which Spanish rentals don't have.

Also check rentalcars.com (broker). They often have good prices. Also free cancellation.

Thanks all. I'll keep checking. Seems Auto Jardim might be the way to go..

If you can all travel light that will save $$$/€€€ not needing a lot of luggage space and able to use a smaller class.

Do you have an idea of the cost of the SMART coverage at Centauro? I'll be renting a car from them in two weeks (Fiumicino Arpt) and debating whether to buy CDW elsewhere and give Centauro a large deposit, or just buy their SMART coverage, be entirely covered, and not leave any deposit.
Thank you!

They don't have coverage that is called SMART.
They have BASIC (with excess and deposit), COMFORT (all risks without additional driver and without express check-in) and PREMIUM (= comfort + add. driver + express check-in).
You can find all the costs on their website.

I don't think it's an issue of you having to check back a lot as you said you were checking for this Autumn. Which would be about the same time in advance. Personally, I don't think that's such a high price. It's less than 100 euro per day, and drop off in a different city than pick up, and I suspect a large vehicle given you have four people. If it's AT on top of that and it includes insurance, doesn't surprise me at all.

I suspect it's an insurance and car size issue and you could easily get these type of cheap fares quoted if you didn't include insurance and had a real small car. I checked Autoeurope in October for those points and the $1000 price comes with insurance and a large Renault grand scenic car but you could easily get a Renault MEgane for only $285 without insurance. So if you are getting that quote for a compact car without insurance, it's something funny with your dates.

Christina: >>I don't think it's an issue of you having to check back a lot as you said you were checking for this Autumn. Which would be about the same time in advance.<<

Are you replying to Maitai since he is the one mentioning he'll 'keep checking'? His post was way back in April. The thread was topped by someone else with a different question . . .

Thank you! The vacation package that we purchased included air, hotel, and basic car, so I'm going to upgrade to the Premium coverage to be safe.

Would you recommend inclusive rate with deductible or no deductible rate? Thanks.

Question: what are the best locations for picking up in Lisbon and dropping off in Porto? I’d prefer not to go to the airport if it’s easy to pick up/drop off at a more convenient location, but where would that be? And if going to the airport will be the easiest, then so be it.

We drive to Evora from Lisbon, if that makes any difference as far as where we should pick up a car.

maitaitomi,
We take the all inclusive, zero deductible rate.

progol,
We pick up our rental cars at Lisbon's Oriente train station as they tend to have a decent selection there, it's not as far out as the airport, and it's very easy to exit the city from there to head across the bridge south to the Algarve or east to Alentejo or north to Porto.

In Porto, though, since we come in east from the Douro Valley on the A4, it's been much easier to drop off at the airport. The rental companies are all in a separate building across from the main terminal and it's well signposted. The building is easy to reach. After dropping off, we either take a taxi into the city or there's the metro option as well.
We've tried dropping off at Campanha rail station but while a pick up there and getting out of the city was fairly easy, the return was quite difficult. Never again.