Advice on using a rental car company that is not based in the US... are there tons of hidden charges? What about the insurances? We need a car in Spain that we can travel to Portugal with. I have always used typical ( Hertz, Budget, etc.) but there seem to be cheaper sites.
Thanks
Posted by
Sacramento, California U.S.A.
10603 posts
I use Autoeurope, which is based in the U.S. They are a consolidator.
Posted by
Gangelt, Germany
101 posts
I've rented from Sixt before and had no problems.
Posted by
Texas
518 posts
I have rented through autoeurope.com several times with great rates. Each time the car has been with Europecar (the name of the car rental company). You can also look at the europecar site to compare rates. With advanced booking, I have found rates for Europe to be comparable to renting a car here.
Posted by
Atlanta
1358 posts
Make sure whatever quotes you get cover insurance. There's 2 types, CDW and super CDW (there's info in this site about it). CDW comes with a deductible, usually around 1100-1500 euro. Super CDW covers that gap. Or you can go with a 3rd party company, like dailyexcess.com, to cover the deductible.
Read whatever quote you get carefully. It should indicate what fees are and are not included. Last year, ours included everything but a 25euro airport fee. When a funky charge showed up on our invoice, a simple email got rid of it.
Posted by
Bend, OR, United States
1167 posts
If you are planning on dropping the car in Portugal you will probably face a hefty charge regardless of the company.
Posted by
Everett, WA
1299 posts
Try gemut.com. Their car rental guy is Andy and he is wonderful. He is very experienced and can answer all your question. Let him know what countries you are visiting and any other needs you have. The only advice I did not take from him was using my credit card for insurance (most Visas and Mastercards have some kind of auto insurance.) We were buying a travel insurance policy that included car insurance-which we used :( Read any insurance policy that you buy from the rental company carefully. Their insurance was expensive and had a $1500 deductible. (You can get full coverage, but wow, it was expensive) We were able to get our travel insurance for less and got medical, lost luggage, etc as well as car insurance.