Renting a car in one town and dropping off in another

If you are in the same country then there usually isn't an additional charge. It's when you want to drop off in another country that you start seeing hefty fees.

Hertz charges a within country drop fee; most other firms don't. I would never rent from anyone that charged a within country drop fee.

The easiest way is to go to a couple of websites and see for yourself. I usually use europcar.com and/or autoeurope.com for this. Compare the prices if you return in the same town or another one. You won't see a drop-off charge, but you may see higher daily rates for one versus the other. Also check larger nearby towns, which may have more agencies. For instance, I'm renting a car in France and returning it in Strasbourg, not Colmar, because the cheaper offers were with companies that don't have offices in Colmar.

You can cancel reservations, so check back every now and then. Sometimes prices are lower the farther away your rental is, but sometimes they drop as the date nears. It's market demand.

Mary,
We rented a car in Lyon and dropped it off in Rouen 6 days later, no extra charge. We used Europcar.

I didn't find much difference in my searches between dropping off from different points in France. You might just try searching on a few websites to get ideas of costs. I did find costs across different rental companies varied widely. I ended up going with Europcar.

Hi,

it depends on the popularity of the towns. I have booked a few different short (3-10 days) car hires for this year in Italy, France and England. The one way in Italy, with europcar had no one way fee, but the hire in france, also with europcar, had a 79 Euro one way fee (pick up Paris, Drop off Lille). They don't show the fees on the websites. They show the hire cost only, they then send you details of the one way fee and you have a certain number of days to cancel without penalty if unhappy. You may be able to get quote over the phone, but as I live in Australia it is far easier with the time difference to do everything onlione.

Different companies have different policies. Europcar didn't charge extra. I was told by Autoeurope that Hertz did charge extra. Or was that Avis? I would ask each company before making a decision.

How long are you going to rent for? Leasing is a much better option for 21 plus days.

Two years ago in France I rented from Hertz one way between Colmar and Chartres. They charged a $50 drop off fee but even with that fee their price was competitive with the other companies because I got the AAA discount that Hertz offers. Some people here have said they rented from Hertz and didn't have a drop off fee so I think it does have something to do with place you are dropping off. You'll have to compare different rental companies and make sure your quote includes any drop off fees. In the whole scheme of things the fee is really quite small, nothing like the fee for dropping off in a different country.

Nancy is quite right , all the " fees " that rental companies charge are a form of what I call " counting money twice " . Whatever the fees are , it's all going into the same pocket and it's really a way to confuse the consumer over what are really nickel and dime issues . The total bill is all that matters .