I'm trying to see if what just happened to me is normal. I reserved a van to and from Munich Airport several months ago for travel in two weeks. Today, I was attempting to find out information on the van as far as USB ports or other phone charging capabilities. Instead of going on the .com domain, I stayed on the .de domain and just changed the language to English. To pull up the same van, I inserted the same dates and found the exact same model. The strange part is that the rental was about 1/3 the price. The weekly rental fee was about half the price, and the taxes and fees are now included. Am I crazy and is going to bite me down the road, or should we always rent using the domain from the country we're traveling?
Posted by
OP
28 posts
or, did the price go down because we're two weeks out and they need to unload some vans?
Posted by
Eastern Iowa, USA
7546 posts
I do not think that there is a hard and fast rule, if the business will accept your reservation and allow you to pay using a US credit card, then do what is cheapest and works. I suppose you have not yet gotten to payment on the .de website, so there may be a glitch there.
I do have to say that common wisdom is that it is cheaper to rent a car from the US before your trip, but rarely does the advice go into details about the company to rent from, currency, or version of the website.
Slightly related, I have purchased airline tickets in euros and GBP off of European websites with no issues.
Posted by
OP
28 posts
I got to the confirm reservation section, confirmed it and got an email of the confirmation. Just like the reservation that I then cancelled. We'll see when I get to Munich and have to pay.
Posted by
near San Francisco
4601 posts
should we always rent using the domain from the country we're traveling?
I found the same to be true on Flixbus. The ticket was somewhat less expensive when purchased in Euros (or other currencies, besides dollars) and the "extras" (such as extra luggage) were far less than half price.
Posted by
Chattanooga, TN USA
565 posts
I had the same experience renting a car in Ireland using the .ie site instead of .com. As part of the checkout process I selected US citizen as my nationality, put in my US home address and paid in euros. There were no issues with the rental reservation when we arrived. Next year we are going to England and I'm finding the same thing on the co.uk website, the rental price is almost a third cheaper than the quote on the .com site for the exact same thing.
Posted by
San Diego, CA, USA
321 posts
Hi Rob- I to have personal experience with multiple reservations with the same car rental company at the same pickup location. Just be sure to take a copy of the confirmation Email with the reservation number and be sure they write up the rental paperwork with the correct reservation number and the lowest cost. I had to get the on-site manager of the rental company involved before the agent relented at the Munich airport desk one time. And I hope you can speak a little German as sometimes the car rental folks tend to stop speaking English at their convenience...
Have a great trip!!!
Posted by
OP
28 posts
Thanks for the advice. I will have a copy of the confirmation with me and although I don't speak much German anymore, I didn't put any credit card information on the reservation and at least two other rental agencies have the large vans, so if I have to walk away and find another company, I'll do it. It seems that I was given an abnormal quote when I booked in January, because most of the agencies are in line with my current confirmation quote.
Posted by
Paris
6889 posts
Yes, I've noticed car rental price variations too - not as dramatic as yours, but several times I've had savings of 20-30% by checking prices again one month before rental date. As I always book refundable rentals, I simply cancel and rebook, and it's never even mentioned when I pick up the car.
Posted by
OP
28 posts
My original quote was 1108.79 eur and the new rate is 411.40 eur for a 9 passenger van for the week. It makes me mad that if I had not been checking out the USB situation, I would have never known and would have paid way too much!
Posted by
Sioux Falls, SD, USA
3046 posts
I posted something similar a year ago, and people said I was nuts. If I went to a site using a UK web address, I got one price, and got another using the USA website.
Posted by
Abruzzo Mountains
1034 posts
I got all excited and checked AutoEurope.it instead of AutoEurope.ca for my upcoming rental. The difference was about $200 for my 19 day rental, or about 1/3 less. I called AutoEurope to complain and they were happy to switch me to the Italian contract/Italian rate. However, they informed me that within Europe you cannot purchase zero-deductible insurance coverage with their contracts, they can only sell insurance with a deductible. And also that because the contract would be with their European subsidiary, I would have to deal with them, not the North American company, if I did have an incident. I then read the details of each contract more thoroughly, and I believe this is correct. The agent was very nice about it, no high-pressure tactics either way.
So the takeaway seems to be it's not always apples-for-apples in terms of what I'm buying. I decided in this case to keep my existing contract. The $200 is worth it to me to not have to worry about any incidents, big or small. But I will keep an eye on this in the future.