Rental Cars UGH!!!

Can't comment on rental car pickup in Edinburgh, but Glasgow Airport in Paisley has a rental car return for most major agencies. A year ago we picked up & dropped off a Hertz rental adjacent the terminal. This September we are using Avis. Picking up at Heathrow & returning to Glasgow Paisley. We stayed & will be staying again at the Holiday Inn Express @ Glasgow Airport. Literally a short walk across the street from the car rental return and another short walk back to the terminal to catch our departing flight. HIE is nothing fancy, but at the end of a month long trip, convenience is most important.

Why so confused ? The rental agencies are right at Glasgow airport . just in front of the terminal .https://www.google.com/maps/place/Avis+Car+Rental/@55.863859,-4.4274998,18z/data=!4m15!1m8!3m7!1s0x47d8a00baf21de75:0x52963a5addd52a99!2sLondon,+UK!3b1!8m2!3d51.5072178!4d-0.1275862!16zL20vMDRqcGw!3m5!1s0x48884f2f04571425:0x2693f88f6381b58d!8m2!3d55.8639485!4d-4.4271674!16s%2Fg%2F11khsth377

If you don’t want to deal with city driving in Edinburgh, pick up the car on the outskirts of town or at the airport. Take a taxi from your apartment. Google Edinburgh car rental and locations will appear on a map.

Generally if you want to pick and drop off at different locations you will get more options going airport to airport

Thanks for the input. Confused on the area of Edinburgh to find a location. I have googled the area and still a bit confused. I will try Avis & Hertz. We are getting car at end of our Edinburgh stay so we don't have to drive much in the city.

If you go to Expedia or one of the comparable websites, you can spot most local car rental agencies. And it's easy to tell which brands have cheaper rentals than others. Prices can vary wildly.

Or, go to AutoEurope.com, a consolidator based in New England. I've had good luck with them.

I agree about Glasgow airport.

Tram to EDI - Again , car rentals right at the airport . Couldn't be any simpler

Try Celtic Legend https://www.celticlegend.co.uk/ that's who we used last year after multiple recommendations on this Forum. They've got several locations in Edinburgh and Glasgow.

I agree with the rec for Celtic legend. They were wonderful to deal with, and they set me up with Arnold Clark as the rental car agency who has also been incredible. I picked up my car from Arnold Clark outside Glasgow. I did not go all the way to the airport. And I will return it outside Edinburgh next week.

Arnold Clark was great to deal with. When I picked up my car, she explained everything thoroughly and went over it all very carefully. She told me what to do if there was an accident or if the car was damaged and how that CDW worked. And she gave me a hybrid car with automatic transmission at no extra charge. I’m not saying they would do that for everyone, but it was still a nice perk and I appreciated it. But I especially appreciated the thoroughness of the transaction.

When we did something similar last year we picked up the vehicle at EDI - pretty simple and straightforward, and made it easy to be on our way since we were well clear of the congestion near the city.

We rented at Edinburgh airport. Steven laid out how to get to it. The rental car counters are right inside the terminal and the pickup location is a five minute walk away.

We booked with Celtic Legend last year. The rental was with Arnold Clark. Pickup in Glasgow and drop off in Inverness. They picked us up at our Glasgow hotel and drove us to the rental location. When we returned the car in Inverness they drove us back to our B&B. It couldn’t have been easier.

We just did something similar a couple of weeks ago. ...In response to someone's question about flying into Edinburgh instead, at least for us it was a good deal less expensive to fly into Glasgow.

We flew into Glasgow about the same time that you will. We took the purple 100 bus that you're' planning to take (can't miss it--right outside the terminal) to downtown Glasgow, where we got the train at Queen Street Station to Edinburgh. Our Airbnb was on the Royal Mile. The morning we left Edinburgh, we walked about 10-15 minutes (very scenic, though a little hilly) to St. Andrew Square in New Town and got the Airlink bus to the Edinburgh Airport. Ran every 10 minutes that time of day.
There we picked up our Enterprise rental. We had been interested in Celtic Legend because of rave reviews, but on the day we would be dropping off at Glasgow Airport they wouldn't be open late enough to give us a ride to our hotel (CL site is not at airport, my understanding).

Several days later, we dropped it off at Glasgow Airport and walked the short walk to our hotel, Holiday Inn. Your hotel is not much further, but if it's an issue, I wonder if the car rental company could drop you off (some do, I think).

All of this to say, it was very doable and we're glad we did it this way. Good luck!

So I’ll give another shout out for Arnold Clarke for your rental car, they were fantastic. We rented through Celtic Legends.
We returned a week ago from a 3 1/2 week trip through mainly Scotland, with a few days spent in York, England. I had arranged the rental car from Edinburgh, the location that’s right near the airport. (Bankhead Dr, Sighthill), and pick up was smooth with no surprises. Our car was well equipped and all was well. The only thing I would have changed is to size DOWN! Roads where we drove in the Highlands were very narrow and a smaller car would have been a better fit. Our car was a Vauxhall Grandland.
We returned the car to the Glasgow location on South Street. The SatNav in the car guided us there no problem.
When we mentioned that we needed a taxi to get to our rental on the west end of Glasgow they graciously said their driver would take us…and all of our stuff! The driver was very friendly, and was even a little concerned when we gave him our rental address as it’s in an older tenement and not a hotel. He was curious as to why Americans find Glasgow interesting, so it was fun to have a conversation with him….even though his Glaswegian accent was a wee bit hard to understand. So I wholeheartedly recommend Arnold Clarke. When I ran the numbers they were the least expensive but better cars and coverage.

Thanks for all the info. I ended up renting thorough Celtic Legend and they have been great. Hopefully when we get the car in September we pleased. To answer the question of flying into Edinburgh vs Glasgow. The answer the cost would have doubled. So it is still cost effective to fly into Glasgow as we planned to visit there too.
Thank you

We rented our car last year through Costco Travel as part of our Costco membership. I had to call them as the website only lets you reserve cars with manual transmissions and we wanted automatic but they not only gave us the best price of all the rental agencies but also allows a second driver at no additional charge.

We are going back this summer and using Costco Travel again! Pick up at Edinburgh Airport on our way out of city and returned the night before our flight out the next day.

Celtic Legend also allows extra drivers and free navigation.

Celtic Legend also allows extra drivers and free navigation.

I agree - I was so happy with Celtic Legend. I'm adding this update to my reply above because I just turned in my rental car to Arnold Clark a couple of days ago. It went so smoothly and there were no dings or scratches - yay!

Also, I opted to turn my car back in with an almost empty tank, which was very handy. They ask if you want that when you pick up the car. At first, I was reluctant because if you do that in the states, they charge an outrageous amount to fill it up. But Arnold Clark guarantees that the price you pay will not be more than the regular public price at the tank. In fact, they just add it to your bill and you're all set. I think I paid around £42, which was about what it cost me to fill up the tank. And it was so nice not having to worry about finding a place to get gas before turning it in.