Does anyone know whether a spouse incurs an Additional Driver fee with Scotland car rental companies? In the US (at least in states where I've rented cars), the spouse is considered an automatic additional driver at no charge (the rental company doesn't even collect spouse's drivers license information). I'm trying to figure out whether that's the case in Scotland as well, or if we should account for the Additional Driver fee when planning our car rental budget.

(I've looked at the terms & conditions on several rental company websites, of course, but so far have not been able to find an answer to this question.)

It varies from company to company . . . Which is another reason I generally use Autoeurope because they will find the best option for my specific requirements on a particular trip.

An extra driver seems to always be extra in Europe. I was able to get a spouse added for free in Scotland using an insurance discount code in the reservation that stated spouses would be included at no charge.

A warning about prepaying a reservation (AutoEurope and others including the agency itself): at the time of payment the driver of the car is fixed. You will have to pay to add a driver at pickup if someone other than the person who pre-paid wants to drive. With an ordinary reservation, the driver and payment card can be changed at the counter.

>>You will have to pay to add a driver at pickup if someone other than the person who pre-paid wants to drive.<<

Not true -- IF you book the additional driver in the first place.

Checking both AutoEurope and Avis, neither allow prepaying for a reservation that includes an additional driver.

To clarify - I mis-spoke -- one doesn't pre-pay but does get a firm price for the second driver. (for instance my last Autoeurope pick up at EDI with Europcar I was quoted Ł13 per day for additional driver and that is exactly what I was charged at the counter so no surprises)

Yes, that is exactly what happened to us for a reservation I recently booked with Enterprise in Wales.
(AutoEurope came up empty when I tried to use them for our dates, perhaps because we are picking up and dropping off at smaller locations?)

But my rental agreement says:
"Additional Drivers – There is an additional charge of 13.00 GBP per day, with a 10 day maximum (130.00 GBP), for each additional authorized driver."

While the policy may vary from company to company, it seems the norm is that spouses are not a free additional driver. All of the available rental car companies through Auto Europe for our pick-up location charge the additional driver fee for spouses (in our case, it's $18/day, $180/max). Unfortunately, in our case, the only day(s) my spouse is planning to drive is on the 1 or 2 days in our 2-week visit when we plan to visit some distilleries—so we're essentially paying a $180 premium for her to play designated driver on those 1-2 days. Not that we would reconsider the designated driving, of course; rather, we'd reconsider visiting distilleries in favor of simply enjoying whisky during our car-free portion in EDI. Just a bummer that we have to consider such a trade-off; but we'll have a great time no matter what!

can you add her day by day while being on holiday or just book individual days/

On distillery tours one gets very small servings.

They do quote a 2nd driver maximum but do not talk about a minimum, so contact them and ask if you can cover her for the first 2 or 3 days.

Most of my trips I'm the only driver (I have several chicken s#it friends who won't even attempt to drive over there) so I've had 2 or more drivers on just a few trips. One thing to consider though - it is a good idea to have a fully covered 2nd driver 'just in case'. On one trip I severely sprained my left (clutch) ankle but I still had to do all the driving (both because my 2 friends were't covered AND they were chicken s#it )

It was an ordeal!

That's a good question bilboburger. Maybe I'll try to contact Enterprise, direct to the office where we will pick up the car, and ask.

We'll just book the two drivers for the whole time, as janis notes that makes sense for a variety of reasons.
But it would be interesting to know the answer to that.

When I was researching last year Arnold Clark had a period of time when an extra driver was included. You should check them out. They were very responsive to email.

AutoEurope confirmed that we can sign on an additional driver for only some days, though it has to be done locally at the Enterprise desk when picking up the car. Yay!

I hope that this is true and doesn't turn out to be some misunderstanding on AutoEurope's part. A promise of your ability to be able to do this is not going to be in the contract with AutoEurope. This thread is not very encouraging, https://www.best-car-rental-tips.com...-a-rental.html but Enterprise in the UK may have somewhat different policies than the US-based version.

I'm not sure what the risk is of thumbing your nose at Enterprise and letting an unauthorized driver drive the car. Certainly insurance is an issue because any insurance you buy from Enterprise would not be in effect for an unauthorized driver, and also using any credit card insurance would require that you follow the contract with Enterprise for that insurance to be in effect. For domestic rentals where your home policy is in effect I think you could thumb your nose and let your spouse drive at no risk-- but I'm not confident that that is true enough to try it.

Raymond, great news, but.. noting tom's concerns, print off all the emails and keep AutoEurope's number on speed dial, you contract is with Autoeurope not anyone else and they have to sort out their commitments.