Car Rental ~ Frankfurt Pick Up/Drop off Mainz?

We have never rented with Europcar but have always used car rental brokers www.AutoEurope.com or www.Gemut.com. We find they have competitive rates and excellent service. With both, you pay in advance in Dollars so you don't have to worry about the Euro/$ exchange rate. If the price goes down, you can contact them and they will adjust the rate. Gemut has a full refund if you have to cancel. AutoEurope has in the past done the same thing.

We usually pick up our rental car from the Avis office in Kelsterbach which is just a few kilometers from the Frankfurt Airport. It is a short taxi ride which last time cost us about 15 Euro or so. However, they are only open until Noon so whether you can rent from them depends on your flight arrival time. If you do pick up your car in Kelsterbach, you can return it to Frankfurt Airport or Mainz with no extra charge.

I rented through Europcar (sort of). I started out following Rick's advise and renting through a US company (National). The rental was handled by Europcar in Europe. Did not have any problems with them.

"We have never rented with Europcar but have always used car rental brokers www.AutoEurope.com..."

If you use Autoeurope (a middleman with no cars of its own) you are very likely to pick up your car at a Europcar outlet.

I've rented from both with no troubles. I've never dropped a car in Mainz; if you do, I would make very sure that drop-off is not in some industrial park somewhere and that it is very easy to reach the main train station.

That said, a trip to St. Goar and outings from there hardly necessitate a car in most cases. Standard train fare from FRA to St. Goar is €17.40 and the trip is just over an hour. You can do spontaneous daytrips by train from St. Goar on a 3-day mini-group pass for €43.60. Trains are frequent, comfortable, and dependable, and they run from early morning til around midnight, hugging the river bank and connecting every hamlet in the area's scenic river valleys. The towns are mostly small ones, so reaching the station on foot is pretty easy from most inns and hotels.

VRM mini-group pass

And at the end you can start a train trip to Basel right from St. Goar.

Rhine train photos:
Niederheimbach, on west bank
East bank train scene
Oberwesel, on west bank

Thank you ~ have just decided to rent car/drop off in Frankfurt to make things easy.
Train from Frankfurt to Basel looks easy too!