We have a rather short trip in late September (8 days on the ground) so will need to rent a car to go from Lisbon to Porto to Villamoura and get back to the airport at Lisbon for 6 days. Does anyone know a reliable and hopefully less expensive car rental agency? We need to rent an automatic, large enough for two people and a couple of pieces of large luggage. Thus far I've seen wide variations in price. Does anyone know about rentalcars24h ? It appears to be a consolidator.
Thank you!
Posted by
Twin Cities of MN
6585 posts
Have you looked at Autoeurope? A lot of people on this forum seemed to like them. I used them once and the price was great and the service good.
Posted by
Cascais, Portugal
1826 posts
Auto Europe is great and usually has lower prices. They are a consolidator and generally work with Autoeurope in Portugal. However, if you must have an automatic, plan on it being much more expensive than a manual shift.
Posted by
Boston, MA
1829 posts
I am not sure why but car rental in Portugal at least when I checked into it was more expensive than most anywhere else in I can recall. Especially if you look for mid size car class the prices were just outrageous.
Still the normal advise of sticking with one of the main agencies applies, not worth using one of the scam artist smaller agencies to try and save a few bucks and hope you get lucky.
My general rule is for Europe don't book with other than Europcar, Hertz, Avis or Sixt.
Using a consolidator often makes sense. AutoEurope as mentioned above is my favorite but was not competitive for Lisbon when I checked.
Never heard of rentalcars24h so would steer clear of that personally.
Autoslash is a good website to look into. They search the bigger consolidators and email you when they find a good rate. I am booked at Avis but was through a Autoslash alert and the booking I made was with Priceline.
My confirmation sent from Priceline comes up on Avis.com so I can see the reservation is in the Avis system.
The price difference between that for the same car type was about half of what Auto Europe wanted so I am a little nervous but taking the chance it will be fine.
My car is a couple of weeks from now so wish me luck.
I did not need an automatic though and have a credit card with primary overseas car rental insurance I am comfortable using and waiving all agent policies ; absorbing the risk and hassle should something happen ; your situation may differ.
AutoEurope's best attribute is that the insurance they offer through the big 3 or 4 agencies is cheaper than buying it at the counter yet seems to be the same policy so if you planned on getting full coverage than AutoEurope.com would be my first choice.