Please sign in to post.

Car rental heads up

Posted by (Woodbridge, CA, USA) on

Just a bit of caution. We rented a car from Autoeurope in September, 2013 in Venice in order to visit Croatia. Picked up near train station, dropped off at the Venice airport. Had an uneventful trip, came back, dropped car off and went on our way. We returned our car within the time limits agreed upon and didn't think about it after that. Luckily, I checked my credit card bill a few weeks ago and noticed an additional charge since we had prepaid for the rental. I called the company and was told that we turned in the car late(3:30) and were charged an extra day. We did not return late, but needed to prove the time we did return. Unfortunately, my husband had already shredded the receipt. Much to our good fortune, I was able to contact our hotel outside of Venice and they sent proof that we had checked in at 1:03. That did the trick and we received credit.

Anyway, please be on the lookout for any additional charges that pop up. Also, DON'T shred anything for at least two months. Hopefully, my husband will listen to me next time as I warned him not to throw anything out for a month!!

Posted by
9110 posts

More important than it being AE, which has no cars and was thus not a player, which rental company was it?

And did the charge come from AE or the rental company?

And with whom did you eventually resolve it?

Posted by
8371 posts

I would think the charge came from the rental car company to AutoEurope.
Even though you may receive a car from a name brand rental car company, many European auto franchises are not owned by the U.S. rental companies bearing their name. I've heard some horror stories about some European rental car operations.
When you deal with AutoEurope, you're doing business with a company in New England that's a consolidator. They buy days at discounted rates with many different car rental companies. They're marketers and don't administrate the rentals.

If you happen to get a ticket, for example, the rental car company would usually charge your credit card $40 administration fees for telling the police who you are and where you live. AutoEurope's left out of the deal.
You shouldn't shred any papers for a car rental for years. Italian police can and will come back on you almost a year later for a ticket. And they'll want to be paid in Euros by wire transfer, which is difficult to pay.
I prefer to rent through AutoEurope or directly through Hertz which is Hertz U.S. owned, as far as I know.

Posted by
46 posts

I spoke to AutoEurope and resolved it with them. They contacted the rental company and took care of it on that end. Funny, though, we just received another charge wasn't included in the price--a road fee of 3.50 euro per day. It was clearly stated on the voucher as something that was not included in the rental fee and would be charged later, so that isn't an issue.

When we picked up the car, it was under the banner of Autoeurop(no e).

This topic has been automatically closed due to a period of inactivity.