Money-saving tips for car rentals in Europe

Pricey rental rates, high gas prices, insane parking fees—renting a car can get pretty costly if you're not careful. Here's how to shave the high price of renting a car into a reasonable travel expense.

A rather alarming road sign on the Irish coast There’s nothing like seeing Europe from your own set of wheels, even taking into account the inscrutable traffic patterns, manic local driving methods, and insanely curvaceous roads that were designed 1,000 years before the advent of internal combustion engine.A rental car grants you the freedom to go wherever you want, whenever you want, turning up a dirt road to visit a vineyard or down a back alley to explore a medieval town.

OK, so cars do have one big drawback: they are pretty expensive, especially when compared to riding the rails. I don't mean just the rental cost.

Gasoline in Europe costs roughly four times what it does here. No joke. That's part of why they drive so many of those teensy, fuel-efficient, little Matchbox cars over there, and why they're still churning out diesel-powered sedans and wagons.

And let's not forget parking garages in cities that cost $20 to $30 a night. High daily rates, mandatory insurance, obscure vehicle drop-off fees. Yep, renting a car in Europe can be a pretty costly proposition.

I’m here to help.

Booking the Rental Car

Rent a car from home.

Rentals are invariably cheaper when arranged in advance from the U.S.. You can saunter into any rental office in Europe and get a set of wheels, but you'll save yourself some big bucks by booking the car in advance.

Shop around at different rental agencies.

You'd think with such competition that the Big Five and other firms would offer similar rates. Nothing is further from the truth. For the same four-day weekend, you'll hear $49.95 from one company, and then the next will blithely say the best they can do is $129.99. I've found that the Europe specialists like Auto Europe (www.autoeurope.com) invariably offer the best rates.

Look beyond the usual suspects.

You'll notice I talk about the major rental outfits last on the Rental Resources page. That's because I rarely find the best deal (for renting a car in Europe, at least) through them. However, since car-rental rates are some of the most fluid and competitive prices I know of in the travel business outside of airfares, there's no telling where you'll get the best rate from one day to the next. Heck, often if you call the same company right back after hanging up and talk with a different operator, you'll get a drastically different quote for the same exact inquiry you just made. Stupid? Yes. But that's the way it works. Good luck.

Find the true rate.

Make sure when you ask what part of the quoted rate is the base rate, what's included (such as CDW), if taxes are included, whether you get unlimited mileage (which you definitely want), and any other restrictions.

Be flexible.

Sometimes if you pick up the car Thursday instead of Friday or at the downtown office rather than the airport, or keep it over the weekend, you'll save big bucks. When you give the rental firm your dates for pick up and delivery, let them know you're open to other dates as well if it means saving money. Trade down a few models; do you really near the Ferrari convertible, or can you make do with a Fiat Punto? Even try different pick-up/drop-off cities—you never know. Also, for complicated reasons, it's sometimes cheaper to rent for a full week rather than two days.

Stick shift is cheaper than automatic.

A stick shift car can be up to 40% cheaper than an automatic shift. On Europe's many narrow, windy, hilly roads and tight streets in ancient cities, manual shifts give you better control as well. Airport pick-ups are almost always more expensive than downtown (but the downside is then you have to navigate city traffic to get out of town, whereas airports tend to be on a major highway at the edge of the city).

Share the love, cut the costs.

Renting is a particularly expensive proposition for the solo traveler, who has to shoulder the entire cost himself. For families or small groups, however, the fact that there's just one lump fee actually works in your favor, as the amount is spread across each person's costs. Sometimes the magic number of total passengers is three, sometimes four, but at some point renting a car becomes cheaper than buying three or four separate train tickets.

Still, even if it's just one or two of you and therefore renting is going to take a big bite out of your budget, there can be situations in which renting a car is worth the expense. If you are at all planning to visit the villages of Provence, the hilltowns and vineyards of Tuscany, the whitewashed pueblos of Andalucia, or any other itinerary rarely of never served by trains or buses, get the car. The truer Europe lies in the small towns, not the big cities. Don't short-change your experience by short-changing your budget.

For longer terms, lease a car instead.

Companies won't usually remind you of this option, but if you want a car for more than 17 days (up to six months), tell them you want to short-term lease it. There's a whole section of this site devoted to the ins and out of such leasing (a.k.a. purchase/repurchase, or buy-back) programs.

Cars are useless in cities.

The traffic is awful, parking is difficult and pricey, and public transportation is usually quite excellent. Save a car for the exploring the countryside and small towns, and save yourself (1) money (2) aggravation and (3) time by arranging to pick up your rented car on the final day you'll be in your first major city and dropping it off as soon as you arrive at your last city—it'll shave a few days off the rental period, and avoid parking fees for those days as well.

Check the restrictions.

Most rental companies have restrictions on where you can drive. With some, you must stay in the country of rental (usually this is only mandated by smaller, national outfits). Most won't allow you to take a car rented in England to Ireland or the continent. Few let you drive from any western European country into Eastern Europe, so if you're planning to drive to Prague, make sure you work it all out with the rental agency from the get-go.

CDW can be worth it.

If your regular auto insurance doesn't cover rentals abroad (check), you might want to buy the collision damage wavier, or CDW. This peace of mind comes basically allows you to total the car and not be held liable. Your credit card may cover the CDW if you use it to pay for the rental, so always check with your company.

However, Italy, Ireland, Spain—for evil reasons that have never been made clear to me—refuse categorically to honor CDW or other insurances provided by a credit card, even if you're renting from the local office of a major company like Avis or Hertz. If you need to buy it separately, don’t purchase the coverage from the rental agency, though, which can charge up to $15 a day, but rather from private insurer Travel Guard, which charges $9 a day (www.travelguard.com).

Trains and Automobiles (Planes Optional).

Look into the rail-and-drive passes that get you several days of unlimited rail travel on a flexi-pass along with several days of car rental. You can add rail days or car days as needed to customize the pass to fit your schedule.

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