Help Renting Automatic Transm. Car in Italy!

Have you tried www.autoeurope.com? You can specifically search for a car by transmission type. I did random dates in April and found an automatic in Brescia. If your online results aren't helpful, try customer service and see if they can get you one.

I always use Auto Europe for car rentals. The smaller the location, the less likely they are to have an automatic. Even if you reserve an automatic, there is no guarantee they will have one upon arrival. I suggest you rent a car in a larger city or airport for better chances.

Jackie, I did try Autoeurope.com and they said that no cars matched my criteria when I searched by Automatic. But I will reach out to their Cust. Serv. people.

I hear you Andreas - makes good sense. What solution is best:

We're starting in Milan, then going to Brescia and Bergamo by train (hard to drive into those towns, I'd assume) and then wanted to rent the car to drive up in to the countryside. Should we visit Bergamo and Brescia by train, and come back to Milan to rent the car? is there another solution? (Verona perhaps)

Best bet may be back @ the Airport in Milano.

Someone needs to be prepared to drive a manual transmission. Manual transmissions and diesel engines are as common in Europe as automatic transmission and regular gas engine are in the US. That is just the way it is. Part of the culture and the experience of going to Europe.

Thanks, Frank, as I appreciate your general attitude about trying to flexible in foreign cultures (not something I'm ignorant about, please understand) we live in Manhattan and don't own cars. There are two of us traveling, one of us is a non-driver and the other drives Automatic. That's the way it is.

But that is my exact point. That's the way it is. Who bends? You or them? If you cannot handle a manual transmission, then what are your choices? Not trying to be sneaky here, but understand that you cannot just demand an automatic. You need plan B if you show up at the rental and all they have is manual.

You aren't trying to be sneaky, but you are projecting and making assumptions that were never a part of my original post. You assumed I was unaware that manual transmission was dominant in Europe - I was not. And when did I say I would 'demand' anything?

A back up plan is indeed well advised. I suppose we'd prefer to take trains as a Plan B. I'm hoping if I rent in Milan I can have a strong chance of getting an Automatic and I will confirm by phone in the days prior to pickup. Even if I could practice driving stick in the next month and a half, I rarely drive in Europe and only spend a couple of weeks per year there nowadays.

I'm also aware there is a big macho thing about Manual vs Automatic in some parts of the USA. And those kinds of things are precisely why I don't live in those parts of the USA.

My sister and I had arranged a car rental pick-up in Rouen one year. We had specified an automatic because she can't drive a manual.. No automatic was available when we got there, but we were told they expected one in in a while should we wish to wait. A few hours later we had the car we ordered but it messed up our day a bit. Lesson taken away was you can specify and demand but be prepared to be disappointed. That's just the way it is in Europe.

JTraveler.
As I explained in other posts automatic cars are not popular with Europeans.
All Europeans know how to drive manual transmission. Automatic cars have always been associated with people with disabilities and if you take a test on an automatic, the drivers' license will state that you can only drive automatic cars. Nobody of course wants that on the license, so everybody takes a test on manuals. Also since over 99% of people own manuals and kids learn how to drive on their family car, they obviously learn on a manual. It's really a vicious circle. Manual cars are also (IMO) more fun to drive, cost less and are more fuel efficient (which is very important in a continent where gasoline costs 3 times the price as in the US).
Since rental car companies keep cars only for few years, they need cars that can easily be re-sold in the local used car market, hence the reason why they keep very few automatics in their fleet and generally only on larger models. A rental car agent in Florence told me that Americans are the only ones who ask for automatics, therefore they keep those cars only at the locations that have a higher chance of having American customers. Brescia is obviously not one of them, I doubt most Americans have ever heard of Brescia. My suggestion is not to rent a car in Brescia, but rather to rent it in Milan, (either at the airport or at a Central station location) or in Venice, if you come from Venice. I'm sure they will keep some automatics in those two cities since a large number of Americans are likely to rent at those locations. Then you can return the car wherever you want, including Trieste.

A tip:
Make sure when you do the searches that you aren't selecting a specific vehicle type. When I was booking a car for our upcoming trip I noticed many of the compact and subcompact cars don't have the Automatic Transmission option. When I increased the search criteria to include all vehicles I was able to find one in the "Audi A4 or similar" model type (I think it was classified as a family car?) that had Automatic transmissions.

This may or may not help in a smaller city search but for my search in Bolzano this did the trick! :)

Thanks everyone. I'm certainly not demanding nor complaining - just asking for help. I'll restrict my search to major city pickup locations, and be prepared to wait, and pay out the eye.

Jtraveler, I agree with your plan B - take the train to Brescia and Bergamo and rent the car in Milano. If you decide instead to drive the car to Bergamo, you will have to park in the lower city anyway (near the train station is good) and take the shuttle bus to Citta Alta (the bus runs every ten minutes or so). Easy to do.

Haven't been to Brescia yet, so no advice there.