Hi everyone,

We are planning a short road trip this summer from Nice → Verdon Gorge → surrounding villages → Marseille, where we will drop the car off. I have been researching rental options out of Nice, and I am hoping to get some personal experiences from people who have done something similar.

Sixt consistently has the best reviews, but it is also the most expensive by a large margin. Their prices start around �200/day for electric vehicles, and non‑EV automatics are even higher.
Alamo and Budget show more reasonable pricing. Almost all other rental companies in Nice (Hertz, Europcar, Avis, Enterprise, etc.) tend to have poor Google reviews, especially for the Nice airport and train station pickup locations.

I know that rental reviews often skew negative since people are more likely to post when something goes wrong, but it still leaves me wondering how risky it is. My questions for anyone who has rented in Nice recently:

• Have you rented from any company other than Sixt in Nice?
• How was the pickup process?
• Any surprises with dents, fuel, tolls, deposits, damage charges, etc.?

Are prices around �200/day for a regular automatic wagon in peak summer normal? I expected high prices, but this still seems steep. I would love to hear what others have paid.

Any specific company or pickup location (airport vs. city) you would recommend or avoid? Thanks in advance. Any personal, real‑world experience would be super helpful!

I always rent with SIXT if they have a location in my destination. I've always had exceptional experiences with them.

That price does sound high, though... Maybe it's the wagon that makes it $$$..
I rent an automatic, with GPS installed (extra charge) and all insurances, and Ive never paid so much per day, BUT I have never rented with them in France.

They have frequent sales if you get on their mailing list but it would be only about 15% off.

I always book rental cars for Europe through gemut.com -- a brokerage company based in Oregon that works with Europcar, Hertz, and other companies. Their customer service is excellent!

I totally agree with kja about Gemut.
Certainly worth a check-in.
My favorable experience with Gemut includes a car accident (crazy woman tried to force me off the road on a two-lane stretch on a mountain curve); $0.00 out-of-pocket for me.
So, not only were Gemut's prices more than competitive, their crisis skills are superlative, should you need them.

Among other misadventures, I woke up one morning in the middle of Istrian no-where (Grači�će, to be specific) to find that my vehicle had sprouted a leak and no longer had any oil. The wonderful Gemut staff arranged for the car (and me) to be transported to a city with a garage (Pazin, IIRC) and also arranged to have another suitable rental car waiting for me there. Kudos to Gemut!

auto europe have supported me on a number of misadventures where local franchises of well known global players have made "mistakes". This includes giving me a car covered with blood (deer strike) and claiming, despite the car still being in their carpark that I had made the mess. Time an again they have stepped in and solved problems in odd countries. Prices are good too.

I have also had good luck with AutoEurope, both before, during and after rentals. It helps that they are located in Portland, Maine and they speak English! They work with many rental companies and the prices have always been competitive.

That's great, but they speak English at every major rental company in Western Europe.

200�/night sounds steep, please recheck your search parameters carefully (including exact pickup/dropoff depots, car category etc.) which may be causing an aberration. We haven't rented at Nice before but regularly rent cars in France, and never had a problem sticking to frontline agencies like Avis, Hertz, Europcar, Sixt etc. (usually booked via AutoEurope with full protection, AhtoEurope is a useful site to alternative run searches and refine/compare prices).

You aren't really explaining in much detail what exactly you are trying to do but I think you are doing something wrong in your search or else it's some peculiarity of the vehicle you want and the dates, because I don't see anything like that on the sixt.fr website. Generally most A/T smaller cars are around 100 euro a day and a midsize SUV maybe between 125-150 euro (pickup Nice airport, dropoff MRS). You can only get to 200 euro per day if you go the the most deluxe luxury models of large size cars. I just checked around first week in July, that's the problem that it isn't clear what you are referring to as peak summer nor what you mean by a "wagon" nor how long you are renting for. Costs are more per day if you only rent for a day or two, but still I don't see anything like what you cited except for super luxury cars. I don't even know what you mean by a wagon. First week in august renting for only 3 days, I still see only 115 euro per day for an EV SUV and 135 euro per day for a Citroen A/T midsize SUV. The Volvo Elite SUV A/T is over 300 euro though and the Mercedes Benz elite large van is just below 300 euro The Skoda KodiaQ Premiums SUV that seats 7 is 260 euro per day.

So maybe it's just that you want to rent an unusually large vehicle in a premium class or something for a few days. If so, no, that price doesn't surprise me.

I am not sure where you are seeing 100 euro. I just checked the sixt.fr website and the cheapest (for any type of vehicle) it is showing is 195 euro per night for a non-refundable fare.

Why don't the two of you copy/paste the actual URLs of what you're viewing, so as to avoid confusion and improve communication?
You can't have good communication without mutual understanding.

Sharing links wouldn't work as the link opened by someone else in other part of the world might show completely different rates.

Then consider taking, and posting, a screen shot.

pdf is a wonderful idea

You still aren't explaining what dates you are talking about nor what type of vehicle nor what locations (picklup and dropoff) nor for how long, so it's sort of a waste for me to do screenshots, and I don't have the oiption of savings screenshots as pdfs. I'll try a jpg file. Now you have dropped the "wagon" remark, so hard to say what you are looking at. Refundable prices only add 6 euro a day according to sixt website.


8/4 to 8/7 Nice airport to MRS, first listings for automatic Citroen E-C3 EV at 113 euro per day and a VW Polo AT at 116 euro per day.