driving in Austria & Germany

Kayak is a good site for comparing rental car prices, but, at least for Germany, Thrifty and Dollar usually come up the lowest. Before you rent from them, or allow a consolidator to place you with them, read the dozens of posts about them (and Terstappen, their affiliate in Germany). Go to the Germany forum on Trip Advisor, where there are dozens of threads and scores of complaints about questionable practices, such as refusing to accept cc coverage and forcing you to take their insurance. The same goes if a consolidator tries to place you with them. I realize that all companies draw some complaints, but these seem way out of proportion to the others.

Ack! Roy's right, but too darn polite. Steer clear of Dollar in Germanmy and a Thrifty everywhere.

Ann, you can cancel with Gemut with no penalty if your plans change.

I don't know about the road condition in dec, but drove in Germany around sep just to get a feel for the autobahn. definitely rent before you go, yes auto is available but more expensive. I used hertz but auto Europe is also a good one (rented from them in france).

You can ask for an automatic, but there might not be one when you show up. Your chances will be better at the airport with its later inventory. Use kayak.com and go with the cheapest. Others will encourage you to use Autoeurope. Don't do it. They, and other consolidators, make you pay in advance. If everwho they foist you off on doesn't have the automatic, you're screwed since they have the money and you've chunked you leverage. Don't pay in advance, no matter what. If you show up and there's no automatic, walk over to the competitor's counter and get them to match the price. As far as advance goes, I rent a lot of cars and take care of it while I'm fiddling around at the departure gate messing with credit card notifications. It takes all of five minutes, costs what I figure it should, and won't make a bit of difference on the transmission since they won't save it for you if somebody else wants it first. You'll need a vignette for Austria. Hopefully you're returning the car somewhere in Germany? The autobahn is far from exciting.

We rented a car through Gemut.com and they in turn rented the car for us through EuropCar. Through Gemut, you prepay so hopefully there won't be any surprises when we pick up the car. We reserved an automatic through them as well. We haven't gone on our trip yet but will let you know how it went when we get back.

Thanks for the tip, but I'm not too concerned yet. They've gotten decent reviews so hopefully it won't be troublesome.

One thing to watch out for - I had one reservation for an automatic at a great rate! but then I noticed it was an electric car - that may be fine if you drive only in cities with plug-in parking spaces, but those are rare and driving in cities is never a good idea. I reserve when I see a good rate but have not had to prepay. I search periodically and reserve again if the rate s, then cancel the other ones. The rate variation is bizarre, wide variations and check the hours of where you will return the car - it can cost more to return it "after" hours and you want a person there to verify the car is in good condition. One of our cars at home is a manual, so it is easy to save a bundle by not getting an automatic car. You could save enough to offset renting a car here and practice driving a manual car for a day before you go. Ask carefully about all fees, sometimes several hundred Euro added fee for returning in a different country! also varies widely, so ask and read the fine print. Austria's vingette is easy to obtain near the border. Driving in Europe is reasonably easy - review the international road signs - there is a page in the RS Backdoors book.

Hi, Joanna: Just returned from a 17 day Vienna / Salzburg trip. We rented through Hertz and I was surprised they were able to beat Europecar's price on an automatic considerably. We ended up with a Mercedes crossover type of vehicle not sold here in the States - very nice car! Given our day trips to Garmisch and Hallstatt, I loved having the automatic.

Thank you all for the advice! As far as learning to drive manual, we dont know anyone who as one so I don't know about that. But I will def check kayak and Gamut (is that spelled correctly) and see what transpires from there. As to driving in winter conditions, my hubby grew up in New England & so is quite used to driving in snow ice.

If you want an automatic, just make sure you specifically reserve one. As long as you're not driving during a snowstorm or immediately afterwards, the main roads in Germany are usually cleared fairly quickly. The only thing that may take a while for you to adapt to is that not only does it get dark very early at that time of year, but artificial illumination is generally kept very low, particularly outside of cities. Some visitors I know found it a bit disorienting driving through the countryside in complete darkness.

Hi Joanna, my sister's and I rented an automatic car from Auto Europe last year. We got a wonderful new car with built in GPS. We had ordered a GPS device when we ordered the car, but since it came with the car, we didn't need it and they did not charge us for it. This year we rented cars in Croatia and SLovenia which we ended up cancelling and our money was credited with no problem. I would not wait till you get their to rent your car if you want an automatic since they tend to go fast. Order in advance

THANKS TO ALL OF YOU. I NOW HAVE BETTER INFO & WILL CONTINUE TO RESEARCH. AND ITS GEMUT.COM YES. I SAW THAT I HAD IT WRONG.