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car rental for the older group and read the small print on all tickets

We rented a very small car for travelling in Croatia. We were very surprised at the end of the trip to have a rather large charge attached to our bill SINCE WE WERE OVER 69 YEARS OF AGE!! The car was returned in excellent condition.

When buying a train ticket in Italy be sure to read the fine print. (Since the back of the ticket was printed in 5 languages one can image how small the print was.) Though we had at least four ticket people looking at our train tickets, during the train ride we were charged 30 EUROS each for not having an additional validation!!!! What were we do it? Get off the train??? No, we gave them our credit card, the purser did not speak English, and could not tell us why. HOWEVER WE ARE NOW IN THE PROCESS OF GETTING OUR MONEY BACK.

Posted by
3989 posts

Why would you be entitled to getting your money back? You are supposed to validate tickets prior to boarding certain trains in Italy. This prevents a rider from reusing tickets and getting multiple rides from one ticket and the 30€ per person was the legally imposed fine for violating rule. By the way, for others who might read this please see http://www.seat61.com/Italy-trains.htm#Travel tips under the heading Ticket Validation for information on which tickets need to be validated. The validation machines are usually green and white but some may be yellow. Further down on the page that I linked to is a picture of a validation machine. You insert the ticket as you would a time card.

It's a bummer about the rental car thing. I have read about the extra fee for older drivers but did not know that this applied in Croatia at age 69. I thought that the surcharge began at age 70 but maybe they consider you 70 for insurance purposes at some point after your 69th birthday but before your 70th (which is not unusual for insurance purposes). AutoEurope has a list of European countries and their age restrictions that can be useful for those seeking information on this issue: http://www.autoeurope.com/go/travel-tips/rental-car-age-requirements/ One more thing, when you book with AutoEurope, there is a little question mark next to the where age 25-69 is checked. If you click on that question mark it tells you that renters over age 69 may be charged a fee and that the Terms and Conditions of the rental will provide more details. I don't recall seeing that at rental car company websites but usually when you click on restrictions related to the car that you are considering, you will see if there are any stated age-related restrictions.

Posted by
5697 posts

Many car rental companies ask the age of drivers before confirming the reservation -- next time you can check for restrictions and extra fees (some companies don't even rent to people over a specific age.)

Posted by
813 posts

Regarding the rental charges. For future reference you should consider leasing if it fits your plans. The single age requirement is being over 18, there are no upper limits or restrictions or charges.

Posted by
399 posts

The single age requirement is being over 18, there are no upper limits or restrictions or charges.

Rick begged to disagree.

Drivers over 70 may have trouble renting in the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Greece, Northern Ireland, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, and Turkey; drivers over 80 may have trouble in Denmark. If you're over 69, you may be required to pay extra to rent a car in the Republic of Ireland, where the official age limit is 75 (although some rental companies will rent to those ages 76–79 if they provide extensive proof of good health and safe driving).

https://www.ricksteves.com/travel-tips/transportation/rental-car-requirements

Posted by
11294 posts

Staynsavor: Rick is talking about rentals, but Irv is talking about leases. The rules for leases are different.