Which location in Frankfurt for rental car
 

I am renting a car in Frankfurt next Saturday Dec. 1 (a very last minute trip) and would like to avoid the higher airport rental fees. Which Auto Europe locations would be the most convenient for me to use? And is it better for me to take public transportation or a taxi? I don't know what taxis cost there.

Our flight arrives about 9 so I think I could get to the off-site offices by noon. Is that probably safe?

Thank you for your help!

Of course, you can take over your car at Frankfurt Hauptbahnhof (you take one of the frequent trains from the airport). It will take you additional 20 minutes compared to renting at the airport.

Check if it is worth it.

Taxi will be expensive, much slower and less convenient.

If your flight arrives at 9 you should reserve your car for 9:30. Often the planes are early and you do not need more than 45 min to leave the airport.

BTW, Auto Europe has no locations. It is just an agency, not a rental car company. The car rental co. would be Avis, Hertz, Sixt, Europcar etc.

I am just curious: How much is the "airport fee"? When I rent a car here, I just get a total price. And if there is an "airport fee" included it would be 5 Euros or so. Maybe the "airport fee" is a scam for Non-Europeans.

The 19% airport surtax on rentcars in Germany also applies to train stations. To save that fee you have to rent from a site away ffrom the airport and the train station, Check with Bob or Andy Bestor at Gemutlichkeit Travel Gemut.com to get you a good deal and answer your question.

19% is the German sales tax ("Umsatzsteuer" or "Mehrwertsteuer"). It is mandatory and has nothing to do with the location of the rental car agency.

Thank you for the replies. I have checked the prices and they seemed to be less off-site by about $60 US, thus my original question about the easiest to reach. I thought I read a post a while back about this, and where that person rented the car but I haven't found it.

I sent a message to Gemut over the weekend and haven't heard back. I guess I will call them. (We are headed down to the Alsace region and are very excited. The work will be worth it.)

Hi AZKathy:

We have used Gemut for several years, the last time was this past May. We picked up our auto in Kelsterbach and saved quite a bit on our 3 week rental, however, we did have a problem with taxis at the airport, the available taxi at the front of the queue did not want to take us to Kelsterbach as it is a short ride and he wouldn't make much $, after having put our luggage in the trunk we took it out, another gentleman came up wanting to know what the problem was,he stated that a taxi can not deny you a ride. I don't know who he was but after some seemingly unkind words to the driver our luggage was re-loaded into the trunk
and we were driven at break neck speed with a full diatribe of cursing all the way. We did give him a good tip but that did not matter. So, just a word of warning.
Susan

AZKathy, we have rented from the Kelsterbach site (AutoEurope through gemut.com) on our last 3 trips to Germany. It's only a couple of miles from the Frankfurt Airport. It is an Avis car rental agency and they are very accommodating and speak English.

The ONLY problem we have had is finding a taxi driver who knows how to get there. Out of the 3 trips, only 1 driver knew exactly where he was going because he had a "key" map. The last taxi driver had a Tom Tom GPS and even he couldn't find it. We had to dig out our own Magellan GPS to get to the right location. It isn't that difficult but for some reason, it causes a problem.

I would strongly suggest that you get Gemut, AutoEurope or Avis to provide you with directions in German that you can give to the taxi driver.

The most we've paid for a taxi was around 20E, the least was 12E.

This may be the thread you are looking for
http://tinyurl.com/2vzs2

But, it really doesn't give you any better info than you've already received, other than it does give the Avis address as Grenzweg 9.

You may also want to go to
www.michelin.com and print directions that you could give to your taxi driver.

Happy travels.

Try Autoeurope's location "Hanauer Landstr 74-78" (the 1st one from the City locations) to pick up the car, and Frankfurt Airport as the drop off station.

That location is easily reached by the S-Bahn going from the airport to downtown Frankfurt until you get to "Konstablerwache" stop, where one transfer is necessary to subway line 6 to "Ostbahnhof" stop, plus an appr. 200yd walk.

For a dummy reservation of the same type of compact car (Opel Corsa), the "discount" for using the city/ off-airport location was some € 50 (€220 vs €270).

The 19% service fee are a surcharge for rentals at any airport or any train station, whenever the rental car company has to use either facilities for its business.

Only the pick up location counts whether that fee is imposed or not. You can return the car at the AP locations without having to pay it.

Since the German VAT or sales tax has risen from 16% to 19% this year, some people confuse the two items while they are in fact two different things.

Thank you all so much. This was very helpful!

Kathy

(I have found that the Kelsterbach Avis office is closed on Saturday and that my sister can't drive a stick. Aaack! I guess I need to rent an automatic. Andrew from Gemut replied today so I will send himi my new info.)

If you need an automatic, I would stay with the airport location. They have lots more cars, and you are much less likely to arrive and fine your "reserved" automatic is not available.

Thank you curmudgeon, and the rest of you too. I have something reserved at the airport and am double-checking the rate with Andrew at Gemut. I will start a new post to ask the next question.