Your experience with a rental car company

You need to contact Auto Europe and change your booking if you want to drop the car. In a place that your current agency does not allow. Let them pick the company. Expect the rate will change, but which way I don't know.

Rental cars and insurance is a bit like cell phone plans, it's just complicated enough for there to be difficulty keeping track of it.

Liability insurance is always included at no additional charge, globally as far as I know. You must be paying for excess liability, not liability, and a high rate also.

I don't see why dropping a car in Stirling is easier? Either way it's an additional step to your hotel, and a tram is going to be several times cheaper than a train.

FYI: I used AutoEurope once and the contract I had with them said excess liability was included, but the rental agency refused to honor it. So AutoEurope doesn't always work out well. I've never had a problem renting directly from the rental agency, and Enterprise is staffed with good people in the UK. Sometimes AutoEurope works out cheaper, esp when they don't charge a drop fee.

I've always rented through AutoEurope and have been satisfied with their policies and service. As Alan suggested, you might want to check with them for an agency with drop off in Stirling. I'm just curious why you want to change your drop off from Edinburgh since travel to city center from the airport is frequent, inexpensive and doesn't take much time. Tram tickets are £5.50, the Airlink 100 bus £4.50.

Unless you have other reasons why it's important for you to get rid of your car in Stirling, I will say that driving to Edinburgh airport to drop off the car is very easy. This from someone who gets quickly frustrated at non-self-explanatory signage. Really, you can't miss it. The main challenge for us was, once we got out of the car, we only figured out by trial and error where the taxi stand was -- all the way around to the left at the other side of the terminal building, in a covered curbside area.

Taking a taxi to our hotel was just fine, and the taxi company gave us a 10-pound voucher for our return trip to the airport. Not sure if all taxi companies do that, though.

Drop off at Edinburgh airport is very easy, and the tram stop is a very short walk from the Care Hire Hub

I assume it is my reply to another post about dropping of the car in Stirling that you are refering to. We returned the car in Stirling because thats where we rented it in the first Place, so no fees for returning it to another location. It was with Europecar.

Enterprise do have an office in Stirling and their website will accept it as a drop off for cars rented elsewhere. You did try the Stirling GB and not one of the others (you can't go to Stirling NZ for instance)? But that said I'd go to Edinburgh Airport, it's on the approach side of the city and the bus or tram is simple. If the main railway station was suitable for you take the special airport bus, if you needed to be slightly east of the staion then the tram may be better.

We hired a car from Arnold Clarke in Inverness. Highly recommend this company. They came and picked us up from our hotel and took us to their rental offices . Great service. We had the car for 9 days. Dropped it off at Edinburgh Airport. Very easy and hassle free drop off there.

I second Arnold Clark recommendation. We rented last year in Inverness; were upgraded to an automatic BMW. Dropped off a week later just north of Glasgow. Staffer drove us to train station, carried our bags to platform and refused tip - super nice people and a reasonable rate as I recall.

FWIW: We attempted a change to our rental through AutoEurope this summer, to delay our pickup by one day from the same location, and we were told by Hertz that since the rental wasn't directly through them, we'd have to deal with AutoEurope. AutoEurope told us we'd have to cancel the existing reservation and rebook. You can imagine the chances of getting an automatic transmission in June for the same rate that I'd gotten back in March was likely zero. So we just went ahead and picked it up the day that we'd reserved. All this to say, AutoEurope is reliable, good rates, etc., but not very flexible. I am sure if I'd booked direct with Hertz, they'd have allowed the change. My company is a huge Hertz customer, so the loyalty program through them buys me a bit of goodwill. I did look to book direct with Hertz but AutoEurope was significantly cheaper. It's a tradeoff, so be aware. (Yeah, I'm sure all this was outlined in the rental agreement. I read that just like everyone else does.)

I booked Enterprise Rent-A-Car in Inverness. No problems. However, they have left the airport and are about 1/4 mile away. When you get to the inverness Airport, go to Guest Services counter and ask them to call Enterprise. They will show-up in about 10 minutes and take you to their car lot. Ask them how they wish you to return it.

Thanks for that info, John. We, too, are renting from Enterprise - picking up at the Inverness Airport and dropping off at Edinburgh Airport. Didn't know we would have to call Enterprise for a pick-up; I am glad to know that ahead of time.

For those who are interested, our vehicle will be a compact (Ford Focus or similar) with automatic transmission. Our rate is £215 for a week, including VAT and a drop off fee since we are not returning it to the same location. (£128 base rate + taxes and fees) Our auto insurance from home is adequate to cover liability, etc.

JOHN from NC ---we are not renting at the Inverness airport, Enterprise has a location in the city, and we will get our car there. It looks like walking distance from our B&B, but we will check with our hosts before we try to walk it wheeling luggage with us.

Our rate is $135 , before the additional insurance costs, and they are charging us 37pound to return to Edinburgh airport.
From what I can figure it's about 8pound a day for insurance..and from what I've read, it's a good idea to go ahead and pay the extra.

So far from the responses to my original question, I'm going to keep things as first planned. I contacted another rental company, and it looks to be more expensive than the deal I got. I bought a Garmin GPS for $99 loaded with UK maps, so I'm set there too, the charge to rent one from Auto Europe would have been the cost of owning a new one (and we needed a new one, SIRI doens't always work)