Warning Surprise Extra Rental Car Charges

You must always notify the rental agency if you will be taking the car across international borders. Failure to disclose it would invalidate any insurance coverage you have.

Often there are fees for driving internationally, and in this case it was disclosed, although not very prominently.

That's illogical news to us, too, when talking about these unattended Schengen borders. Fine print does matter, as I learned the hard way when planning to take a car outside the EU (where there are huge upcharges). When you first make the contract, read the fine print (Auto Europe is one company that has recently made this easier to read) and follow up on items that don't match your understanding of the agreement.

Lesson One: Dollar US is not Dollar Worldwide. You're dealing with individual franchises which have not much in common except a brand name and a booking system.

Dollar/Thrifty are an absolute lash-up on the continent with more quirks than you can imagine. Nobody with a lick of sense uses them. The UK franchise works okay, however. I'd have thought that the Netherlands franchise was the same one that has Belgium and Germany, so the partial geographic limitation is a surprise.

Some rental car agencies in the States use GPS tracking devices to enforce geographic limit restrictions. Do Euro car agencies use GPS trackers?

While the borders aren't what they used to be, crime levels can still vary widely from country to country, and the car company doesn't want to make everyone driving in a low problem area to have to subsidize those driving into a higher crime area. I read all the way through Hertz's terms and conditions when making a reservation for Germany recently, and they exclude a good number of their car categories from being driven in Italy, I'm guessing because of a higher number of problems they have with cars that have been driven there.

This is why you lease instead of rent, if you are going to be using a car for 3 weeks or longer The price is what they show on the contract, no surprises when you pick up the car which will be brand new and exactly what you signed up for. A long time ago a dear friend of mine told me about leasing but I thought I knew better. After the arguments at the Hertz desk at the Frankfurt airport that I really meant it when I reserved an automatic so my wife could drive it if needed, we finally got an automatic but a much bigger car than reserved that smelled slightly like an ash tray. After paying for full CDW and the extra driver fees, and all the airport fees (None of which had been mentioned before) we were also upside down on cost relative to a lease. I'm sorry to hear about the fees you were stuck with but that's the way it goes. Just as with airfares, I wouldn't expect it too get an better in the future.

There can also be other extra fees. Years ago I rented a car from Hertz in the UK, picked it up in Exeter, drove it around Devon, to and around Wales, and dropped it off at the Salisbury train station as pre-arranged by telephone. I was never warned about the extra sizeable fees I'd be charged for not returning it to where I had rented it and leaving it at the train station. I didn't argue with the existence of such fees because of the extra work and record keeping involved for Hertz, but I should have been notified in advance, and I especially should have been told how much the fees would be. Now I know what questions to ask. The charge on my credit card bill was just one huge item, so I challenged it and demanded an itemized statement. I eventually got the statement but it took several months.