One Way Car Rental

Good luck on finding an automatic shift. Some times they're available and some times manual shift trannys is all rental car locations will have.
Drop off fees vary greatly within Europe. Last time we rented in Italy and turned it in at another city, there were no drop off charges.
Check AutoEurope.com and compare rates. They're a New England based rental car consolidator and very well thought of.

I've never had trouble getting an automatic - reserve well ahead, from bigger pickup locations with lots of tourist business. Malaga train station is likely to be fine. A tiny local company office in a random small town will likely only have standard transmissions. You do pay more, both for the automatic and because you can't go through the small, discount agencies.

I've used Europcar and I don't remember any drop fees for in-country. This was a few months ago in Italy and one and two years ago in Spain. I can't say with 100% certainty that there was no fee, but it wasn't substantial.

Europecars all had drop off fees.
Any other website recommendations?

I used Sixt last summer and paid a 59€ fee to pick up a car in Barcelona and return it in Madrid. But, I also paid 35€ for "premium location" to pick up downtown in Barcelona (Sants train station), and return in downtown Madrid (Plaza de España)

Try AutoEurope, Kemwel and Gemut. They are all consolidators that work with multiple rental companies.

We have a rental booked through AutoEurope-- Seville to Granada. No drop off fees.

The fact that others have rented cars with no drop off fees means absolutely nothing other than that is the deal they got and does not transfer to present question. Drop off fees mostly relate to where the rental company wants to move cars. If they are eager to get cars into Madrid then you probably will not have a drop off fee but if the car going to a dead end locations then there probably will be. We recently were in France had a small fee (50E) when we wanted to drop it in a small town. Had we been headed to Paris rather than the small town I am guessing no fee. You just have to check the different agencies.

Our present experience is that auto trans are becoming more common but you still have to be prepared for a standard transmission if that is all that is available at that time. Without stating a preference our last three rentals have all been automatic.

Very helpful. Seems it is about specific cities and also train stations are more expensive than airports. Had a decent rate with Auto Europe that showed all included but then an asteric leading to nowhere about drop fee may be additional but would let me know before purchasing. Went through purchasing but never mentioned so am moving in from them. Driver can drive stick but none of the rest of us can so am thinking booking automatic is best in case of emergency.

I think rental agreements normally require all drivers to be documented and authoruzed up front (often at a consderable extra per-day fee). If you ignore that requirement, need to use a substitute driver, and there's an accident, your insurance (of all types) may be completely nullified because the driver was unauthorized. Be very, very careful about this, because big bucks are on the line.

I did a search on expedia for your pick up/drop off cities and got a result that had a $19.15 'drop fee' in the rate. Did not seem to matter if a stick or AT was selected. The car was from Dollar

I haven't paid a drop-off fee in Spain on either of my rentals. But I picked up and returned at popular Andalucian towns. Could it be because Alicante is smaller? Are you dropping off during opening hours?

It may be because Alicante is not in the same region.
Turns out Priceline has the best rates and seems to have an all inclusive rate with no prepay either.
Airport pick up/returns are cheapest, next combo train station and airport pickup and return, next train p/u return and next train/city.

Tried expedia and doesn't recognize cities.
Surprised it's the hardest part of trip to book.
Usually do trains, maybe that seems why. It is cheaper for 4 people with car.

We just did this twice in our trip, picked up a car in Malaga airport dropped off in centro Cadiz, picked up a car in Sevilla and dropped off 11 days later in Malaga centro. No drop off fee and we booked prior to leaving US with Hertz.

try autoeurope.com (a consolidator) and europcar.com. Europcar usually shows up on Autoeurope, sometimes the rates are lower booking directly. Read the fine print . . . Europcar quotes usually include fees that may be add-ons to the Autoeurope quote. Autoeurope requires prepay, but they are very quick with refunds. Europcar usually gives a discount for prepay - also refundable.

We used AutoEurope to book our rentals. We didn't have drop off fees. Sometimes we rented a stick and sometimes an automatic but there was always an automatic option and they seemed eager to try to give them out to Americans- as we were given automatics even when we booked sticks for the same price. But I saw them try to upsell one lady. So same price isn't necessarily true. Our trip was taken over the last 2 weeks.