returning a rental car in/around Paris

You could drop the car in Reims and take the train into Paris. I have driven from Reims, without going into Paris, and dropped the car at CDG, too.

Reims is a good hike from Dijon and bypasses Paris to boot.

Orly is pretty easy coming up from the south. The other option would be to swing the peripherique and make the drop at Nord, but that might actually take a bit longer overall.

Why not Dijon, at the train station, and take the TGV back.

Have you driven in Lille before? Watch out for those speed cameras, especially in the road construction areas.

We dropped off at Orly and it was easy. We did not have GPS. The car rental return was in a parking lot near the terminals, well marked. We were coming up the autoroute from Burgundy. Traffic was heavier after the final toll but not bad On a summer Sunday afternoon. We used viamichelin for directions. I had scoped out 2 gas stations on the internet for final fill up and both were open and easy to find (we used the first one but saw second afterwards)

We had originally planned on leaving the car in Dijon until I saw that train tickets were 65€ per person(3 of us) Dijon to Paris and I thought since we'll already have a car why not just drive it. Our daughter then has to get a train back to Lille from Paris that night.
Orly sounds good since airports typically are fairly easy to get into. I also saw on the map feature on the kayak website that there is a Europcar location on Ave Foch, looks to be right off the highway.

We haven't driven near Lille before but have heard about the speed cameras. I will be on hubby to drive the speed limit!

We were going to take the train from Lille to Dijon originally too but those prices were way up there. More than the car rental, tolls and gas will probably be.

I don't know when you are planning on traveling, but Dijon-Paris tickets start at 19 euro each. Public transportation from Orly into Paris will cost that much per person. If you are planning on driving into Paris on a Sunday afternoon, expect jams from about Orly on in. Avenue Foch is next to the Champs Elysee, so you'd have to drive around a chunk of the perifpherique (ring road freeway). There is an EuropeCar sub-agency in a hotel at the Porte d'Orleans, too, but that area can get pretty jammed.

For train tickets, you can recheck the price at sncf.fr but don't let the site transfer you to RailEurope. There is also a direct Dijon-Lille train that passes through CDG. Sixty-five euro is the full price. You should be able to get some type of reduced rate, especially with three traveling together.

I would return car and Dijon and train it to Paris. Driving in Dijon = easy, driving in Paris = a nightmare. We have returned cars in both of those cities. I would NEVER again return a car in Paris, but no problem in Dijon. If you decide to go against this advice you should get very explicit instructions on where to return the car. In our case it was on a different street near the train station a few blocks from where we picked it up.

If taking the train from Dijon to Paris we'd like to leave 5:00pm ish. On SNCF I'm getting 195€ at 5:00, 159€ at 5:25 this is on Sunday the 28th Sept. I'd like to be in Paris for dinner time so my daughter can see my parents and brother before she heads back to Lille. Class start the next morning at 8:00 so she must go back Sunday night.
I wasn't really thinking about Sunday evening traffic in Paris. Hmmm, maybe just bite the bullet, and take the train.
If we were to leave the car in Dijon, is the airport the easiest?

I don't know what your choices will be for a Sunday drop off, but make sure you check for Sunday hours. Smaller places will probably be closed.

There are car rental agencies at the Dijon train station.
Sunday afternoon and evening is prime travel-back-to-Paris time, which is pushing your train ticket prices up.

I priced it out on sncf.fr (in French) and assuming your daughter is under 26, it's 135 euro for the three of you at 5:29. She gets a discount. Does she have a SNCF student discount card in addition? If so, she'll get the reduced student discount card price.

Hi Susan,

I travel to Europe every year and I always use GotRentalCars.com. You can call their call center and they will help you find the best return location in Paris depending on your itinerary. GotRentalCars.com works with many rental car companies and they will find a promotion for you. Don't hesitate to ask them for a promo code!
Good luck and enjoy France!
Paul

Yes, do check: I doubt very seriously that the Ave Foch location is open on a Sunday.
edit: I stand corrected. Just checked their website and they are open until 7 pm on Sunday (they do close between 1pm and 3 pm on Sunday). wow!

Update, we are home. We ended up returning the car in Dijon and taking the train. The return place was closed but they have a key drop, I don't recall the rental counter in Lille telling us that and we were confused when we arrived in Dijon, then saw the key drop. Also the lot was completely full so we had to leave the car in the middle of an aisle. This little excursion to Gray/Beaune was pretty much last minute so train tickets were expensive but worth not having to driving into Paris on Sunday after driving Lille to Gray on Friday. My husband and I paid 88€ a piece for our tickets, my daughter's was 66€, she is 24yrs old and I bought her a youth pass at 50€.
We bought the tickets at the station when we arrived and there were very few seats left on any train to Paris. Only one train had 3 seats available and they were first class. Buying ahead of time is definitely the way to go but when plans change last minute you just have to deal with it. When I went to purchase the tickets online in Lille, I was given 2 options that I recall. One was print them right then(which I had no printer to do) or pick up at a machine but need a chip and Pin card(mine is a chip and sign). I could have purchased them at the Lille station with a person but we were in a hurry to catch the bus and I figured it wouldn't be an issue buying them last minute. That was an almost wrong assumption!
My chip and sign card worked in most toll booths, 2 of them wouldn't take it but there was a cash option but we used our daughter's French debit card in those 2.
Also, while renting the car in Lille at the airport, the woman said that you are supposed to have an international driver license. My dad drives annually in Europe and hasn't had one since the 80's so I didn't bother with it. I thought we weren't going to get the car!

Last note, having a daughter that is fluent in French is quite handy when traveling outside big French cities:-)

I haven't heard of France requiring an IDP, but it is a good idea.