car rentals

Obvious question: Which agency made it confusing for you? Not obvious question: Do you have an American Express card? Semi-obvious question: Where are you picking up the car?

Contact www.gemut.com. They are US based and guarantee the lowest price.

To Ed- I am honestly confused by all of the details of deductable waivers and are they necessary? I checked with both Kemwel and Avis. I am renting the car in Nice and there is airport surcharge, deductable waiver, as well as of course taxes. Any suggestions/advice?

I think you're getting wrapped around the axel for no reason. Airport fees (and sometimes train station fees) are normal. So are some premium location fees in cities. If you want to rent from these locations, you pay the tariff. When you consider the time and cost to get to a location that's marginally cheaper, it's generally just not worth the trouble. Taxes are also normal. What ticks you off are when/where these two things show up in the rental process. If they appear close to the final step, you feel like you're being screwed. Deductible waiver is the cost of extra insurance so that you don't have to pay the first five hundred, first thousand, ect, if you damage the car. You can purchase this in varying amounts when you pick up the car. MasterCard and Visa provide variations of coverage of this item depending on the card issuer at no charge. American Expresses provides complete coverage for twenty-five bucks per rental period if you're enrolled in their program. What you decide to do depends on the amount of risk you're willing to assume on your own. Personally, I think AMExp is the best deal going and the amount of money involved is chump change. In countries where no credit card will provide insurance, I usually buy coverage down to about the first five hundred bucks. Deductible waiver, collision damage waiver, inclusive rate are all the same and account for the two disparate rates you see on some rental sites. Super cdw has nothing to do with collision, it covers minor gravel nicks, tire damage from a pothole, etc. - - with this you pay nothing, not matter what - - it's expensive.

That takes care of the costs. Now for what I think is the best way to rent a car. I refuse to deal with consolidators (autoeurope, kemwel, gemut, etc). You're buying a pig in a poke since you don't know who you're going to be dealing with until you cough up the dough. Gemut is especially loathsome since you have to make your needs known, wait for them to respond, check to see if you can find a better rate, renegotiate - - all to match what you could have found out in two seconds by other methods. I use kayak.com. It's fast and accurate and the total cost is clear immediately. You only have to make a couple decisions: rental agency , car size, and pickup location - - they're all on the initial matrix so it's done at a glance. There's only one caveat with them - - the mystery meat icon. If it appears, click it and see if you like the agency - - sometimes I do, sometimes I don't, but it's easy to move on down the list. My tail's in a rental car somewhere in the world six months out of the year. Here's what's happened to me in the last few hours: Right now I'm sitting in Bangkok waiting for my adult leader to get herself organized. Several hours ago I was in Singapore trying to unscrew an airline connection so I could get to her. When I finally figured out what I was doing, I fired up kayak, found that the cheapest car was mystery meat with a known crappy reputation, rejected Hertz since they were ten miles from the airport, and picked Avis although they were five bucks a day more than the cheapest option. The whole process took about two minutes of international data time and I have a car parked downstairs. Earlier in the month it was Cairo, last month it was Bucharest - - all with the same minimal effort.

It's so simple that I don't even mess with car reservations ahead of time - - it's something I do in the departure lounge while I'm cooling my heels after security.