I have seen lots of praise on these forums of Auto Europe. We are planning on renting a car in Perugia for three days in late May. We are renting an automatic. The least expensive car on the AutoEurope site is a Budget car--compact class. On a whim, I decided to check the Budget site. It is $30 cheaper there. Neither site include the 0 deductible--available on AutoEurope site only for manuals.
Is there any advantage to spending the extra $30 to rent from Auto Europe?
I would be tempted to give each of them a call regarding the $0 deductible. Personally, I wouldn't rent without it.
Make sure that Budget rate includes all taxes
I’ve always rented automatic thru AutoEurope
Never did not have full coverage option
Are you sure about that?
To get a fair apples-to-apples comparison for anything (but especially for car rentals) you must read all the fine print, and understand exactly what it says and means. There may be different levels of coverage or other small details (small until you need them). I probably wouldn't sweat bullets over a $30 difference, in that case I'd pick the agency/car that's most convenient. Caveat: I never pay for the zero-deductible insurance, since I get that coverage from the credit card that I use to pay for the rental (and I am fine with stick shifts, and actually prefer that to an automatic transmission).
We used Auto Europe to get a great deal on a car through Europcar in Britain in 2017. When we showed up to get our car the one we booked wasn't available and the replacement didn't have the navigation system that we wanted (also, trunk space was smaller).
To get a car that had trunk space for two airline checked bags and a nav system, we had to pay double the price for a larger vehicle.
We could have managed with the replacement car and left one bag in the back seat, but that would have been a theft risk. Also, renting a GPS was going to cost an absurd 20 GBP per day.
I will never use Europcar. We have booked through Budget and never had a problem.
We arrange our cars by calling up the broker Autoeurope [having the use of a toll feee number]; get zero- deductible collision, which covers any damage to the body of the vehicle. Read this about driving in Italy and restrictions involved [ZTLs]; never leave anything of value in a vehicle when parked:
If you choose Perugia Airport as the rental location, the zero deductible insurance is available on auto transmission cars in the AutoEurope website (with Europcar rental company).
I tested May 27-30 and the rate is $179 for midsize as opposed to $142 with Budget with rail station pickup (but no full coverage).
Depending on where you are staying the airport may be more convenient as it is located half way between Perugia and Assisi.
It’s hard to compare prices without knowing what each offer includes in terms of coverage.
We need to rent from railroad station not airport. Both rentals are from there. I will follow the suggestion of calling both but neither are that complete online. There is, for example, no indication that I can find exactly what the deductible is. But neither one that I can figure out allow $0 deductible for an automatic. It is clear from reading small print that it can be purchased from Budget but no information on how much which I do not like. We rented in Greece two years ago with a $1000 deductible which was the best we could purchase. It made us nervous, especially since one of the cars was brand new but no incidents.
We have had the experience of bait and switch a couple times with renting. The worst was in the U.S. when the alternative car we were provided was an SUV with four seat belts and we had five people!
Staff at AutoEurope is very helpful and knowledgeable
Call them toll free
And also check with Kemwel. They're now under the same corporate umbrella as AutoEurope, but can have different rates (sometimes very different).
I would rent directly from Budget. I don't see the advantage of adding an intermediary. If there's a problem, I'd rather ask Budget to honor its own promise than that of a different company. While AutoEurope may be the best of the breed even their zero-deductible coverage has troubling exclusions if you read it.
A possible reason to use AutoEurope is that a lot of people have reported that they--at least sometimes--get better rates by doing so, and some have found AutoEurope willing to go to bat for them when they had a problem with the rental-car company. I have never rented a car in Europe, but guidebooks have been recommending AutoEurope for many decades.
