Automatic car rental

Automatics are not particularly popular in France and can be both more expensive than manuals and more difficult to find. The larger the rental location, the easier it is to find automatics.

I cannot comment on pricing, but I would certainly check www.autoeurope.com. If there is any problem, Autoeurope is there with English-speaking operators at any time you may need them.

Thanks Tocard. I just got an Autoeurope quote for $411. A better price!

The rates you see are unfortunately the current going rate in France these days. May, especially late May, is a peak travel period, and I see rates around 70€/day for manuals, with automatics typically 15-20% more expensive.
If you are staying in Paris beforehand, you can look at prices at Orly airport. Might be cheaper, but you have to factor in $50 for toll and gas to Tours.

I guess you hadn't heard about how covid has affected car rental prices? Its pretty much the same in North America as well.

I did not know it was affecting France. I have not seen any postings about it, so it did not occur to me! I certainly know it's impact in North America. We experienced it in Hawaii last year, and we were renting 3 cars. Thanks for the info.

We are picking up our automatic rental in Beaune and keeping it for two weeks, costing ~$600

We had our car break down within 2 hours of being in country. My daughter was busy translating and talking to hertz. Hertz left us stranded in a town and we had to navigate our way back to Paris. Our Normandy section including some of the Loire valley was ruined. They did nothing help us secure another car like the contract stated. We waited 5 hours for a tow truck and then another hour while hertz was supposed to get us another vehicle. In the end, they told us they had no cars and hung up on my daughter. They Would not remove the charge so I had our credit card company refund us the money. One month later, I receive a $50 voucher on a future rental in the mail. My point in telling you all this is to be sure you our prepared to drive and plan for the unexpected. It was not a great first day after getting to France. People in the small towns do not speak English. We had a Wi-Fi device but I had to use data to call French numbers. Thankfully a shop owner let us use a local phone to communicate with hertz. Some of the Loire valley is very remote.

Hopefully, no one would expect anyone in a small French town to speak English, but this illustrates exactly how valuable Autoeurope can be, which offers free telephone calls to its English speaking staff, in the event of any problem.

Autoeurope has great service and very competitive pricing.

You are unlikely to get much better than $411 for 6 day automatic car rental, so go for it!
And remember that Autoeurope reservations can be cancelled free of charge up to 48 hours before departure, so feel free to check prices again in April, and rebook if they drop.

Unccds, that sounds awful! I am sure you were dismayed that Hertz would just abandon you like that, I would have been. Not speaking much of a language is especially hard when there is a problem to solve. We depended on our 17 year old daughter to help with translations in Spain. She had studied 4 years Spanish at that point. But the differences between her style of Spanish and the Catalan(?) spoken in Spain made for a few interesting outcomes, like her renting us 6 hotel rooms one night...
Balso, I did snap that up. It won't change our plans because we will only rely on it for chateaux trips from our Amboise b&b, and we are prepared for them to not have an automatic at pick up. Also, gas prices might become an issue. Our next destination in Beaune doesn't have parking, so we might try a day rental. But I am excited for our 6 days in the Loir!

We got back to Paris and made it a great 2 weeks. We don’t expect people to speak English. I am half Japanese and I expect to use my 2nd language when I have lived in Japan. It was just frustrating that textbook English is not the same as conversational English.

Note that the agencies in St. Pierre des Corps close firmly for lunch from 12 to 2. I should have checked the cigar lighter fuse before driving away from the big company rental we used there. Luckily we had only gone to Château de la Bourdaisière, and it was easy to backtrack. Of course, he only had a 10 amp fuse for a 15 amp job. Now I keep fuses in my carry-on, but they change fuse sizes every two years, it seems!

Tim, thanks for the reminder. So people still smoke in rental cars? Or did you need the lighter for something else?

Jef, you found a great rate. We are looking late April and a one day rental in Avignon was $200 for a manual. Getting a car in Nice and dropping it off in Avignon for three days was $550. Not worth it for us for that amount. The $441 sounded great.

hey hey jef
happy to hear you grabbed that cheaper rate rental car. it's so so so bad everywhere. in june last year rented one for 2 days in seattle for $400 OUCH!! aunty went with the flow, one niece from oregon another from kentucky and one living there with no car. we all were great to cruise around parts of the city.
going to big island hawaii in june to see family, saw the prices of cars and rooms have gone over the moon, thank goodness my family puts me up and takes good care of me. will treat them to 2 nights in kailua kona
check to see if you need an IDP (internationl driving permit), your rental company may ask. AAA has them $25, 2 passport size photos, your current DL and you get it that day, good for a year. one for each driver.
watching your other post, you have a place in annecy? we stayed 6 nights and loved it, one of my favorites.
i'll post a couple things there for you if interested.
aloha

Coupla things, "Hertz" and "Avis" outside the US tend to merely license the name and goodwill but if anything goes wrong, don't try calling the US help numbers because they won't.

And just to cause trouble, but I would be really surprised if a rental agency would go to the trouble and expense of setting aside a very particular kind of car for one particular client. Much like airlines and hotels, I bet rental companies overbook to account for no-shows. And they only vaguely guarantee a car in a particular class anyway. Be prepared to find only non-automatic cars upon arrival.

We were looking at rental cars on Autoeurope.com and to get a compact rental in Nice and return to Avignon requires a one way fee. Sixt had one for $418.82 which included a one-way fee of $96.69, unlimited miles, picking up at the Nice train station and returning to the Avignon TGV. It says it includes Liability insurance, but we are thinking it does not cover insurance for damages of any kind which will probably hike the rate up. The following was included:
Additional Information
Includes Unlimited Mileage.
Liability Insurance Coverage Included in rates . Unlimited coverage for personal injuries to persons outside the rental vehicle. Coverage up toEUR 100,000,000.00 for material damage outside the rental vehicle. Coverage up to EUR 1,600,000.00 for environmental damages.
Rail station Surcharge: 12% included, will still apply to local charges. Each additional driver is EUR 13.00, per day, VAT included.

Hertz wanted a charge of $696 which included a $174 one way fee, with a 0 deductible insurance, or $609 with liability, fire, collision damage, theft. With a credit card block of EUR 1,500 at time of pickup
This was for two full days rental. No thanks.

JR, that would be a hard no for me! Princess Pupule, I would love Annecy input. We are at the Splendid. I am an old Hilo girl, and we try to go home every year. We prefer to rent houses in Mauna Lani or Waikoloa because I need fast, frequent beach time. We took our 2 kids and 4 grandkids, so we also had to rent 2 houses. I lucked out on our May 2021 car rentals. Expensive, but I reserved way early so got MUCH better prices. Phred, Autoeurope has a guarantee of transmission type but not model etc. Because we will be training to and from Amboise it won't be that big of a deal if they end up not being able to provide the automatic. We would just need to find other ways to get to the chateaux.

I see a lot of people saying that you risk not getting an automatic even if you book one. Of course the risk exists... But is it actually that common? Did it happen to forum members in France? I actually often find myself in the opposite situation, with an automatic when I book a manual.

Are you sure you need a car? Perhaps tours out of Tours (ha)? Or rent a van and driver? We as Americans tend to overdo the car rental, I think.

hey hey jef
what a riot!! i'm an "old" hilo girl also LOL, "old" in age and "old" as in how long ago i was there. left in 2000 with move to mainland, but with family hamakua/waimea/kona-kealakekua.
i'll gather my info and send you a private message. mahalo
aloha

phred, I don't think we need one. I agree about car reliance. We think it would provide a bit of freedom and relief from our month of train trips, but not necessary. I did check out some tours, and thought about a viator tour that seemed reasonable. Others were really expensive. I don't want to spend $400 usd for 1-2 chateax, for the 2 of us. I love the idea of renting a van and driver, but also have found high prices ~ >$600. If I am looking in the wrong places, I would LOVE pointers! We also know that the other 'tour' members can really impact the experience. Not always in a positive way. On a wine tour in Tuscany I desperately wanted our driver to ditch one of the couples along the roadside.

Jef

Viator isn't a tour company, it's a booking agency owned by TripAdvisor.

The big problem with them is that if the IS a problem with the tours Viator will say it's a problem with the tour company, and the tour company probably haven't heard of you. It's not unknown for us to get last minute bookings from people who thought they had a Viator tour lined up, and for some reason Viator had never sucessfully communicated to the tour company that the tour had been booked. And for that you pay (or rather the company pays) 20% of the tour price.

It's odd about car rental costs appearing so high. The few times I have rented in the past 18 months the costs have been more or less what we would have paid in 2019. I can only guess that it's because you're booking from the US with a company that has a US office.

Thanks Simon. Do you have any recommendations for tour companies?

Jef - I will allow someone else to recommend one :)

Jef, back then I was using a clunky Garmin. But surely you need to charge your cell phones or tablets in the car, especially if you run a Navigation app? That's why I needed the lighter-fuse.

We rent cars for less than half our trips to Europe, but we found it was perfect for the Loire. (We happened to be going to Normandy after that, so we really wanted the car, for MSM and estate garden visits in the northeast.) You can see a lot more in a day, and can leave a chateau early if it's too crowded or you don't care for it. We also stopped at places that we saw signs for but that weren't on my list.

May can be too early, but check for Son et Lumiere or outdoor Candlelight Illuminations, which will book up well before your arrival in France. It depends on your interests, but the small (and sleepable) Château de la Bourdaisière is in few guidebooks or histories. But in 2012, they have a specialty 100-variety Tomato garden, and a huge Dahlia garden, plus a nice woodland walk, even for non-guests of the chateau.

It's not about Chateaux, but you can "drive-by" the nuclear power plant in Chinon in a way you cannot in the USA.

Jef - I will allow someone else to recommend one :)

How about this one. I understand their English is very good:

https://www.tourtheloire.com/

Thanks Tim. I travel with a battery pack, so I can always charge my phone. I am hoping the car won't smell like smoke. In Kelso, Washington you can drive by nuclear towers- no longer in service. I would love to see Son et Lumiere, but I think our timing is off. That chateau sounds interesting, and too bad we will be too early for the 100 tomatoes! But I would enjoy seeing what they have planted.

Thanks Tocard. I showed that site to my husband, and while it looks great it is $$$$! $900-1100. We can handle being in small group tours, and they are probably more in our price category. I will keep looking...

I think I will ask for specific info in a new thread ...

I am hoping the car won't smell like smoke<<<

As far as I am aware, rental cars are non smoking. You get charged a cleaning fee if they detect smoke in the car once you return it. So you have no worries on that score.

Thanks for that info, it is reassuring! Even when I smoked 35 years ago I did not smoke in my car- too stinky.

I can only add that I have rented from Hertz in France several times without a hitch. I have always encountered English speaking agents in their Hertz branded offices, and the transactions were always very smooth. I have rented and/or dropped off in Paris, Caen, Bayeux, Cherbourg and Rennes. The only difficulty for me is that Hertz charges a drop-off fee for different destinations. I have also never wanted, or requested an automatic transmission. I did just this week reserve an economy car for late May and early June. It came to €464 (approximately $511US) for eight days with pickup in Paris and drop off in Caen (Normandy). Because on this thread, I just compared it to www.autoeurope.com and found a very similar, but slightly higher rate.