Car Rental

26 years of using autoeurope without a hitch.
Pls pu an idp from aaa.
Pu car on your departure from granada and drop off prior to entering old town seville.
Use the website viamichelin for great maps

Does $449 sound right? That's quite a bit more than I was expecting to pay for 3 days. Even when I change the dropoff to 7/27 in the evening it's $449

Also try Kemwell....a division of AutoEurope. We have used them for many trips and they sometimes come in less than AutoEurope, never had a problem with them. What size car are you looking for?

The cheapest automatic

$449 seems high for three days (dropping in the same country). Does that include CDW? If so, look into American Express's CDW option for car rentals. It goes with specific cards (for us Costco) and has different restriction based on what state you live in and where you're going (I used it in Spain) - if you can use it, it's cheap.

I'd try any and all rental car companies to see what you can find. Also rent away from the airport, typically that comes with additional taxes that can add up. I'm not sure I've ever rented a car for less that a week, so I'm not sure what kind of premium is attached to a short term rental.

You might save money, if you don't have planned stops, by taking a bus (from Granada to Malaga, for example). Buses are cheap, comfortable and will reliably get you from point A to point B anywhere in Spain. The bus stations (at least everyone I went in) have an information kiosk with an English speaker who will help you sort out your options and book your tickets.

The only reasons buses haven't worked for me is I'm rarely going from point A to point B. Normally, I'm going from point A to point B, with stops along the way at C,D, and E. Those stops require connections that rarely mesh well with bus schedules.

That is a high cost and does not include fuel and parking expense.
From Granada to Malaga the bus is a great option.
We love Malaga and annually base our travels from there, but am wondering what attracts you to the area? If this is a first visit to Andalusia we recommend going from Granada to Ronda to spend one night then proceeding to Seville. It is much easier, and cheaper, to use bus/train service to Ronda and Seville.
Like Brad, an excellent poster on Spain, we rent cars for wandering around, but we always take public transport when going from point to point.

We just want a couple days to relax by the beach in Malaga. I think what we're going to do is bus from granada to malaga. We may just have to rent a car for a day then to do Malaga to Ronda in the early AM, then on to Seville that evening.

This is definitely related to wanting or needing the automatic car. AutoEurope has much cheaper results for manual cars from either Hertz, Europcar, or Avis, but of those three, only Avis shows an automatic available at any pick and drop points in Granada and Sevilla. The price does not include optional insurance. If you can drive a manual transmission, then that will be much kinder to your budget.

Or, Google Maps shows other car rental companies operating from Granada (Thrifty, Enterprise, Budget, Atesa) and you can check their rates as well as whether they have offices to receive the car in Sevilla.

Or just bus to Malaga, as in your last response, above me.

My apologies. I forgot to add automatic

So where I'm at now. Going to book a train from Granada to Malaga for ~ $35 total for both of us. I've been researching at it looks like we can do a train from Malaga to Ronda for $19 but the only option is leaving 10am and arriving noon. Ideally would like to be there earlier. Then from Ronda to Seville we have to go Ronda > Antequera > Seville which takes around 3.5 hours and the latest train leaving Ronda for Antequera is around 5:15pm so we only get 5 hours in Ronda. From what I can tell there should be a bus that goes from Ronda to Seville at 8pm that arrives 10pm but nothing comes up when I try to buy
http://www.avanzabus.com/web/horarios/horarios-autobus-ronda-sevilla.html

Anyways, a rental from Malaga to Seville comes as low as $133 for an automatic on rentalcars.com (same day dropoff) but it seems like they are going to add on a 25 euro fee for the airport pickup and then pretty sure there will be minimum 70 euro dropoff fee for it being in a different city.

If there are any options I missed, please let me know. Does anyone know why the bus schedule isn't there?

Los Amarillos operates some of the buses running from Ronda to Sevilla but the sales page at https://regular.sinfe.net/venta gives me this message, "Estacion cerrada temporalmente."

You might get better answers from the Ronda tourist office by email: [email protected].

Yes, rent your car in Malaga. But drive to Marabella, then Ronda, then Grazalema, then El Bosque, then Arcos, then Seville. This is the most scenic route through the Pueblos Blancos.

Interesting, haven't read/heard to do that drive before. I will definitely have to look into it as an option if we decide to suck it up and rent the car for the day.

Does Ronda come up under a different name on Portillo? From what I saw Portillo and Los Amarillos should both have buses

http://portillo.avanzabus.com/web/default.aspx?lang=en
- Doesn't have "Ronda" listed under "origin"