peppermintpatti

Has anyone used this company? They are much cheaper than the competitors which leaves me wondering. There are four of us, so we want to rent a van, which seems to narrow our rental company choices. Thanks in advance for any experiences shared! pp

janisj

&quot;<i>Has anyone used this company?</i>&quot; Millions - it is a large, well known rental agency. Whether they are cheaper or not depends on the small print - do your other quotes include the same insurance coverage?

Nlingenfel

I always use the Holiday Car Special. Sometimes, I owe a small amount for airport fees, but usually none. They have always been cheaper than the other sites I visit.

ira

Hi P,

Have you compared them with www.kemwel.com, www.gemut.com and www.autoeurope.com?

DAX

Where are you renting the car? Sixt is a very reputable rental company. I personally prefer Sixt over Hertz/Avis if I'm renting in Germany/Austria. Don't mix it up with sixti.com which is a discounted/cheap car rental.

bettyk

You don't necessarily have to rent a VAN for 4 people. We rented a compact wagon for 4 of us a few years ago and it was just fine. (We ended up with a Ford Mondeo.) We each had a 22&quot; carryon plus one small piece of hand luggage.

MilenaM

We have used it in Aug 2007 in Paris for a week. Two months later we received a letter asking for an accident report number or the payment of 500 euros for a dent. Needless to say it took a zillion letters to make them understand there had been no accident. Others on this forum suggested taking pictures before you turn in the car, which is clearly what I'll do next time.

Pinchme_iam_dreaming

We rented from Sixt in 2005.. Amsterdam to Munich.. The model we requested had not been returned by the time we got to the rental desk so, they gave us an upgrade, a discount and waved the drop fee. A great company to do business with. I will use them again.

baby108

We got a much cheaper quote from Sixt several years ago for our upcoming Germany trip and I called Hertz and they matched the price from Sixt. I prefer Hertz as my hubby had a Gold acct. and also the Hertz location to pick up the car was right at our hotel, so it worked out very nicely for us. Maybe if you prefer to use another rental car company, it worths to send in the Sixt quote and see if it will be matched.

lemidi

I have had 3 experiences with Sixt always in France and each time there was some sort of issue. In 2004 my friends had confirmed reservations for a midsize automatic in Nice (during the Cannes film festival). Upon arrival the car size was not available so they were given an upgrade to a luxury automatic (after much time and hassle).
The same year I had a confirmed reservation for an automatic minivan at Gare de Lyon. Upon arrival, no automatics. We were offered 2 midsize manual cars for the 6 of us. We declined so they (Sixt) had to drive out to the Orly airport to pick up their only remaining automatic van while we waited in Gare de Lyon and had lunch with the vouchers they offered us. About 2 hours later they were back with the van and we were off.
Lastly, in 2006 we reserved a minivan in Toulon. NO probelms with the rental but literally 11 months to the day after we returned the car a charge from Sixt rental car in Germany appeared on our credit card for $100.00. We disputed the charge and after several letters the charge was reversed. We never found out what the charge was for though.

Even with these experiences I would probably rent from Sixt again if the confirmed price in print was significantly cheaper than the competition. In my case the savings were huge because automatics are fairly pricey in Europe and sometimes hard to come by. They are always quite a bit less then autoeurope and kemwel but I nenver tried gemut. We did have problems but they were always resolved. I think Sixt will almost always give you a confirmation to get the business figuring they will deal with the customer service issues later. As far as the charge on the card I don't know what that was about.

By the way, I thought Sixt and sixti were the same company with sixit just their mini car department.

peppermintpatti

Thank you everyone for all your responses. You are all very helpful, and I appreciate the time you took to help me. If I could ask for one more piece of advice. I am planning to get trip insurance, which includes car rental insurance. So, I was planning to decline the insurance offered by the rental company. Good idea or bad idea? Thank you again. pp

Sher

JUst check to see if the car insurance covers you if you book your trip yourself.

This may have changed, but one of the companies which offers this coverage only is valid if a travel professional books your trip.

The way I understood it is that if a travel agent books your plane reservations for instance and your hotel accomodations then the trip insurance would be valid. Or if they book your hotels and your car.

Not all of the companies have this rule but when we used one in 2005 we were told the car insurance part was not valid because we booked everything ourselves.

I just cannot remember the name of the company but not all of them offer car so it should be easy for you to find out.

Pinchme_iam_dreaming

My rental was all insurance inclusive in the price from Sixt.

4ash

We rented from them in summer last year. Pick up in Frankfurt, Germany and drop off in Copenhagen, Denmark. The drop off fees were steep but the 2 week rental was a great price. Car itself was wonderful. We had no problems after the drop off. Parked in lot at the airport and dropped keys in box. Made all bookings etc on line. We called the day before we were to pick up the car just to ensure everything was in order. Great prompt service. Would not hesitate to rent from them again.