Car Rental Advice for Europe (probably Naples to Paris, and then Prague to Venice)

uniqualz on 10/06/2017 - 12:23
Last edited 10/06/2017 - 12:24

Hey All,

I'm taking the wife and 2 kids (15 and 11) to Europe in Sept/Oct 2017 for 5 weeks. Was wondering about car rentals.. We've done Europe heaps over the years but not many car rentals, so any advice would be greatly appreciated. In particular, advice on one way rentals, and also dropping it off in different countries from the origin? At this stage, we've earmarked a car for probs two seperate sections of the trip - probably Naples to Paris, and then later on, Prague to Venice. Are there any great tips anyone can offer for one-way hire/crossing borders etc making it much cheaper?

Thanks Very Much,
UniQualz

Travel

Comments

  • altomic on 10/06/2017 - 13:26
    +1

    Hi, 3 years ago I booked a car with the car rental company Citer through Holiday Autos. HA were the cheapest @ ~$35 a day for 3 weeks. We got a Peugeot diesel hatchback for the 5 of us. We drove paris->cologne->Prague—>Vienna—>St Anton—>Venice—>Nice—>Barcelona—>Paris. I'd recommend driving any day. The roads are usually excellent condition autobahns so you can cruise at 160km/h,

    Crossing borders- now that it is EU then there are no borders. Very different from last century.

    My main tip is to avoid buying petrol in Italy. It was a lot more expensive compared to the rest of Europe (that we visited)

    • uniqualz on 13/06/2017 - 11:22

      That's an EPIC trip Altomic.. cheers for the fab help mate. Did either of those companies sting you for anything unexpected upon pickup or return? Any issues at all? Did you pick up and return to the same city (Paris) because they'd sting you a hefty one-way fee otherwise? If so, was the fee declared to you before you booked it?

      • altomic on 13/06/2017 - 12:47
        +1

        4400kms. But when you're sitting on 160k/h then it passes pretty quickly. I picked up the car at Gare d'nord station and returned to Charles De Gaulle Airport, so no one way fees. No weird fees. It was all very smooth. All cool.

  • lubos on 10/06/2017 - 13:39
    +1

    Have you considered trains? I went from Vienna to Venice by train early this year with my kid and it was great. From Prague to Vienna you can take the train too. Trains in Europe are so comfortable. A bit pricey if you are buying tickets at the last minute. A lesson I've learned when I bought last minute ticket from Venice to Rome (over 300 EUR for two) - ouch.

    Car rentals in Europe are expensive and it gets ridiculously expensive when you want to return car in different location. I did car rental for 3 weeks too (driven about 5,000 km) but I've returned the car at the same place so the price wasn't that bad.

  • donga100 on 10/06/2017 - 14:14
    +1

    I did a lot of research into one way rentals a couple of months ago and just couldn't find any way around paying at least 500 euro to collect in one country and return in another. I ended up just changing plans from Barcelona - Milan to do Rome - Milan instead. It was great having a car and much cheaper than trains if you have 4 people.

    • uniqualz on 13/06/2017 - 11:26

      Cheers mate.. so the ~500€ fee was specifically for crossing the Spain/France/Italy borders, not actually for one way dropping of the car - no fee for that?

      • donga100 on 13/06/2017 - 20:39
        +1

        No, crossing borders didn't matter, the extra fee was just for picking up in one country (Spain) and dropping off in another country (Italy). In fact, we drove across to Switzerland in our rental car and didn't have to pay anything extra as we were still dropping it back to the same country we rented it in.

  • try2bhelpful on 10/06/2017 - 16:12
    +1

    Have you looked at the leasing options?

    https://www.driveaway.com.au/peugeot

    • uniqualz on 13/06/2017 - 11:23

      Yes, considering it atm.. waiting for quotes! ;-)

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