Tuscany Car Rental/Drop Off

AutoEurope is not a rental car company, it is a broker/consolidator that works with Hertz, Avis, Europcar, and other rental companies.

Orvieto has a Hertz office, however AutoEurope has stopped working with that Hertz franchise office due to poor customer service. You may be able to drop off there if you rent a Hertz car using the Hertz website rather than booking a Hertz through AutoEurope.

Montepulciano does not have any rental car offices. The closest place where you can do so is in Chiusi (Chiusi Scalo, to be exact). Chiusi Scalo (=Chiusi Station) has offices with Hertz, Avis, Europcar. From there you can take a regional train to Rome or to Florence.

Your challenge may be that you would like to return to a smaller location on a weekend. Such smaller locations likely keep limited hours on weekends, perhaps open only Saturday morning. I did a quick check on AutoEurope.com. You could do return Siena that Saturday or Sunday (I checked both 10 am and 3 pm). You could do return Orvieto or Chiusi the Saturday (but only in the morning, 10 am worked but 3 pm didn't). But you couldn't do return Orvieto or Chiusi the Sunday. Unless you return to Siena there will also likely be a one way drop off fee. I checked both returns Orvieto and Chiusi and was $55 on a one week rental so not that bad, but something to consider. But the round trip Siena the weekly rental was under $200 for a smaller car, the return to Chiusi was about the same (plus the one way fee) but the return to Orvieto the weekly rental was more like $400 (plus the one way fee). So if you are price sensitive it makes sense to consider all your options. On google maps Chiusi is about 1/2 hour from either Montepulciano or Orvieto, so might be convenient for you. Have fun planning!

Laurie Ann, thanks for your response. I did not factor in the one way drop off fees so thanks for bringing that to my attention I did experiment with alternative drop off times but I never seemed to hit the "magic" times like you did - thanks! I will give this another go.

drop a car off in either Montepulciano or Orvieto on either 3/26 or 3/27.

That is a Sat. -Sun so likely limited hours, particularly in smaller towns

Roberto is spot on as usual. We have used the Hertz office in Chiusi a couple of times, pick up and drop off, and found it very convenient. Right across the street from the train station (which has very good pizza while you wait for the train). We rent directly from Hertz.

Thanks for all of your very helpful feedback. Based on your help I think we will drop at Chiusi and then take the train to either Orvieto or Rome but that is another thread :-)

As noted, the drop off fee differential between Chiusi and Orvieto was extreme.

Thanks all!

We rented a car in Siena and dropped it off in Orvieto. I do not recommend using the Orvieto rental office. There is no parking area so you have to park on the sidewalk somewhere along the street. We waited over an hour to turn our car in, missed a train, so had no time to see the town. We did get another train to Rome that was old and slow.

The Orvieto and Chiusi car rental locations are right near the train station, and both are an easy train ride to / from Rome if that matters. Be mindful of opening times, most are usually only open a 1/2 day on Sat and closed on Sun, plus closed for long lunches weekdays.

Hertz in Chiusi is closed, a shame because it was a half block from the station. Avis is two blocks away and Europcar 400 meters. Both are closed Sunday 3/27; open mornings only on Saturday.

Sunday you can return a car in Florence at Via Palagio degli Spini, the big complex near the airport all day, or to the Garage Europa [Hertz and Avis] downtown on Borgo Ognissanti in the AM. The latter is reached by crossing the Ponte Amerigo Vespucci; northward approaching the bridge the ZTL can be avoided by heading no further east.

I ended up reserving a manual compact through Auroeurope with pick up in Siena with drop in Chiusi from 3/24-3/26. That was also with no deductible. With the $55 drop fee the rental came in at about $300 which feels a bit rich.

While there is nothing that I can do about it as I need the car, I am just curious if this price seems high or is roughly $100day a "typical" car rental price for Italy?

Auto rental rates at this time in Italy are astronomical

I’ve been watching rates for weeks, months really and never seen so high

Pretty sure we paid about $300 inclusive for a week rental of automatic in 2014, no drop off fee back then

We’ll keep checking rates for our April trip but if rates don’t come down substantially we’ll go with an alternate no car itinerary -a bit of a bummer