Drop off charges in France-CDG--Bayeux

Try autoeurope.com instead of Hertz and see if you do better. They gave us the best price this year, and have many other times.
Kenwel, their partner just had a -20% sale last weekend, so you can keep your eyes open in case it repeats.

You'll find a much lower price on autoeurope.com. You'll pay a fee for picking up a vehicle at the airport, but there shouldn't be any drop-off fee.

Look, it's just like airfare-the price is dynamically adjusted to reflect demand, competitors, holidays, everything they can feed into the computer. It may be my imagination, but I feel that when I repeatedly query the same journey on United Airlines' site, the price goes up in later queries. In 2012, we picked up an Avis car in Tours on July 3 and returned near Place de L'Etoile on July 12. The total cost was about USD $375 (every insurance refused.) You just have to keep at the various rental sites, trying combinations of what you want, until you find something acceptable. I've read that there are sites that "attack" the rental sites for you every day. I was just as concerned with lunchtime rental office closings, and the quality of the return experience (including possible phantom damage charges ... ) as with the precise price. There's a lot you can't control. I am not bragging about the good price I got - it was a lot of time online, trying one company and pickup location/dropoff location after another. You also have to willing "pursue" the rental just to the point before "Click to Reserve" to see the full list of costs. One criticism I have to make: When you write "what else could the difference be?", it means that you did not look at the right hand column of the car rental site and enumerate the charges? Was there a labelled fee or not?

No, there was not an extra fee noted. I checked these rates within 5 minutes of each other. Thanks all for the help.

Another idea Bob, I see you have a schedule, but have you tried to squeeze things so that you get a weekly rental? It might be less than four days and eight hours (made-up version of your schedule.) You can't return it earlier than you order it for, but sometimes five days can equal a week. Again, it depends on the company and the market conditions. BTW, make sure you have room for five people and their luggage in the car. European models are unfamiliar to me, but maybe you know the Opel you want. I don't think you need a medieval-city dimension car for this trip ... We brought our own GPS, but my wife had a Euro-Garmin from past business trips. Speaking of GPS, it turned out the cigarette lighter fuse was blown before we rented, and we had to go back to Tours after our first stop to get a replacement (free.)

Money aside, if you are going from Paris to Bayeaux and considering dropping off the car in Bayeaux, how will you get back to Paris? Train? What about train schedules, luggage, etc. Would it be cheaper to keep the car and return it to CDG? Otherwise, you would be taking the train into Paris. To what station does the train from Bayeaux go? Is that close to your hotel in Paris? Would you take the metro from the train station to your hotel area? We have found it to be quite easy to drop the car at CDG. We then take a taxi into the city. Yes, I know we could take the metro but with our luggage, we are usually will to pay for the cab. I know we have too much luggage (another subject) but as I get older, I try to also consider my convenience plus the number of steps to go up and down. Same issue with a bus and luggage.

No need to drop a car back at CDG. Just drop it at an agency near your hotel after unloading the family and bags at the hotel.