Car rentals Germany...rent one place; turn in at another?

Just reserved this week, picking up at the Cologne central station and dropping at Paderborn using Eurocar. Didn't seem too excessive, about $90.00 a day. Have used them to do the same thing, picking up in Nantes, dropping at CDG, and a pickup at Barcelona and a drop at Lyon, however, on this one I got Hosed, because of the dropping in a different country.

If you p/u and drop off in Germany there would be no extra drop off charges involved(although according to the article from the link below, Hertz is beginning to charge a small fee for a drop other than the origin) There would be an extra pickup charge at an airport or train station so if you could find a pick up place off site from the airport or train station it would save you 20 per cent of the rental charge. There would be no extra charge for dropping a car at the airport. I have used Gemut.com that Steve mentioned several times and can highly recommend them. When you go to the link he mentioned you can find answers to a lot of your questions. You can also call them for assistance. Here is another link they provide which may help you.

http://www.gemut.com/Newsflashes/Newsflash-Home-Page/Airport-Car-Rental.html

I agree -- Gemut.com is the best! We've used them for 4-5 trips and never had a problem.

Our first experience was back in 1991 with the owner, Bob Bestor. For our last trip (pick-up in Frankfurt, drop-off in Paris) his son, Andy, handled everything. (We picked up at an off-airport site (took a taxi) and saved $$$.)

Two things we love about Gemut are 1) You can book and cancel later with no charge; and 2) They will price match. Find another deal anywhere on the web, send them the info, and they will match it.

:) Gute Reise!

Thanks folks! Tell me do they have rental offices in varying places? I just assumed they would definitely have one at the train stations/airports.

Although the general rules are that pick up/return in an airport/train station will cost you more, and one way rental even in the same country will cost you more, I find it vary from company to company within Germany.

For Avis, it costs more to rent from an airport (e.g., FRA) than from a local office in Frankfurt. But for return, it does not matter. Also one way rental in Germany does not cost extra.

For Sixt, it does not matter where in Frankfurt you pick it up or return, the price is the same. One way rental in Germany costs you a little more (less than 50E, I believe), depending on the distance between the two places.

Bottom line, try different locations, and read the fine prints ;)

Susan - I agree with others about using Gemut.com. I have booked a car through them for travel this month. We are picking the car up in Frankfurt and dropping it off in Garmish. We are picking the car up at a downtown location rather than the airport and saving significant $ doing so. There was no additional charge to drop off at different city than the pick up city.

My experience with Gemut.com was not as others have described. They were slow to return my phone calls and then quoted me a price that changed a few days later after I'd told them OK.

In any case, we ended up reserving a car from Avis in Berlin. Originally, I'd planned to pick it up from the airport, then found that I could save $250 if I picked it up downtown instead. That was a huge savings.

A couple of other things to consider: we paid in $$ instead Euros, which was the best deal (since we didn't get charged a transaction conversion fee on our cc). Also, when you book online and they ask you if you want the optional stuff like GPS, etc... we passed on that because of the extra charge. However, when we got the car, it came with it. On another trip, we booked a large car with manual transmission because it was much cheaper than automatic (though we really wanted automatic). As it turned out, the car they gave us was automatic; a win for us.

We picked up a car at the Frankfurt airport in 2006, dropped it in Dachau without a drop fee. I suggest you look at AutoEurope, their price are generally better than renting directly from a car rental company.

I have used Gemut.com two years in a row (2008 and 2009)and no problems, and their rate was less than others.

Both times we picked the car up in downtown Munich and one was returned at Munich airport, the other returned at Frankfurt airport - no drop off fees.

If Sixt has no fee to pick up at an airport, they must have the fee in there somewhere because the fee to pick up at airports and train stations is levied by the taxing authorities, not the auto rental company.