car rental with Auto Europe

The rental car return at the Edinburgh airport is easy & the airport itself is very accessible, right off a motorway. It's a good place to return a car. I've used Autoeurope several times & have never had a problem.

As long as Auto Europe puts you with one of the bigger companies (Alamo/National/Europcar) you'll have no problems. A friend said they rented with them in the UK recently and were put with EZ cars I think who were off airport

We've used autoeurope in France and Germany and have had zero problems and zero complaints. The cars are always "as advertised" and the service folks have been quite nice.

The advantage of using a broker such as AutoEurope or Europe-by-Car is that they do intervene in case of any misunderstanding. Once a small town agency charged us European resident prices instead of the lower prices reserved for non-EU residents. AutoEurope handled the refund immediately.

I hate to rain on the AutoEurope parade, but the disadvantage of using any broker, including AutoEurope. is you are putting an unnecessary third party between you and the rental company. If a consolidator such as AutoEurope gives a much lower price than the rental company offers, go with it. But I have not seen that price advantage in apples to apples comparisons. On the other hand, having a third party only complicates things if you do run into problems with a rental. I have seen several instances on other web sites where this occurred. One example involved a travel writer with a car in France: http://www.francerevisited.com/main/France/advice-opinion/car-rental-complaints/auto-europe-europcar-avis-hertz-budget Another potential problem is if you are using a third-party insurer such as AmEx Premium. In such a case, the broker becomes a fourth party in the mix. Each additional layer increases the risk of something going wrong if you do have to file a claim.

Regarding Autoeurope and National: http://www.ricksteves.com/graffiti/helpline/index.cfm?topic=59626 Of course, this info is anecdotal. But the treatment I received from National/Citer in Paris was just unbelievable - and not unbelievable/good. They never acknowledged email sent to their Paris office - ever. I sent a registered letter that was never answered, either by email or regular mail. Autoeurope did step up and had the "extra" day removed from the charges (I had plane ticket receipts for a morning flight to Germany on the alleged extra day) but claimed they couldn't do anything about the supposed damage and "accident". IMO, when a European car rental company has an opportunity to assert vehicle damage caused by a (foreign) renter who uses the Visa CDW option, they do it. Doesn't cost them a thing, and certainly some folks just pay rather than continue to be hassled. So, avoid National, and/or buy CDW.

Lee, I checked back to your previous post and am not clear on some things. If you had a problem with National once, why did you accept a rental from them again? Didn't AutoEurope tell you the name of the company providing the car? Also, isn't National headquartered in St Louis? That would make it a U.S. company, but with multi-nationals, I am not sure that matters, anyway. I have dealt with international rental car companies headquartered in Europe and in the U.S. and could not tell the difference.