Photo by Dmitry ONISHCHUK
If you have not decided to go to Europe in your own car, but want to combine business with pleasure and take a trip through Spain or France for educational purposes, you will have to use the services of rent-a-car companies. So, you have decided to rent a car. You are, presumably, already familiar with the specifics of driving in a foreign country, but there are also quite a few nuances when renting. We will tell you about all the subtleties of renting a car in Europe.
Formally, two documents are usually required for rental. These are a driver's license and a plastic card from one of the international payment systems that has money on it. An ordinary domestic driver's license is quite sufficient for driving in a foreign country. Rental offices, as a rule, set two conditions. First, the minimum driving experience must be at least one year; second, the renter's age must be at least 20-21 years (depending on the country). Young and inexperienced people may, in principle, be refused a rental, or they may have the base rate raised. For business-class cars, the driver's minimum age is usually at least 25-28 years.
Nowhere without a credit card
On the bank card (Visa Electron and its analogues do not qualify), the rental office blocks a certain amount ($200-1,000 depending on the class of car). If no incidents occur, the card will be unblocked immediately upon returning the car, but if problems arise, losses will be covered from this very money. In addition, the rental fee is debited from the card. When renting expensive cars, two cards are required (one of them - not lower than Visa Gold), issued to the same owner - the potential renter.
In some small offices you can also pay in cash. In that case, you are offered to leave your passport and/or a small amount as a deposit - $200-500. Usually, this is done by firms either in small resort towns (before that, they, naturally, check whether your hotel room is paid for a long time), or by rental points at hotels. However, you must remember that such rental companies are often quite greedy. Therefore, before taking a car, you need to inspect it very carefully - you may miss a small scratch, but when handing it over, the owner or receiving clerk will definitely see it. And then the deposit will remain with him.
Before renting a car, you must book it. You can do this either at the office of a well-known international company (such as Hertz, Avis, Europcar) or via the Internet. A third option is to book through a travel agency. This service is also provided in our country, but usually at a very high price. The fact is that domestic intermediaries do not give their foreign partners a large volume of orders, which does not allow them to reduce the price by cutting their own commission.
An hour or two of active searching on the Internet - and you can find a specialized Western travel agency where ordering a car will be cheaper than even directly from a rental office. All you need to do is give the agents your bank card number, print out the page with the booking details, and go to a prearranged office or counter at the airport.
Through the Internet or a travel agency, it is not a specific car that is booked, but its type. Let's say you specified a Citroen C3 in your request. But this does not at all mean that you will get exactly that make. It is quite likely that it will be one of its "classmates" - an Opel Corsa, for example, or a Peugeot 206. If a car of the ordered class is not available, then large companies give a larger car, but the price does not change. The author of the article has had experience with such a replacement. As a result, instead of the promised Citroen Saxo (an analogue of the C2) with a weak 1.0-liter petrol engine, we got a Skoda Fabia with a torquey and economical diesel engine - we saved a decent amount on fuel given European prices. But if we had not booked a car, we would have had to pay the full price for the Skoda - and its rental is undoubtedly more expensive than the Saxo.
Another advantage of booking is the guarantee that the car will be available at the required time. Sometimes during the holiday season companies have a shortage of cars, and walking into a rental office off the street, you can simply be left without a car or have a choice between expensive "Mercedes". In the case of confirmed booking, such problems should not arise.
You can take the car either at an office in the city or at the airport of arrival. The latter service, however, often costs extra money. Also, returning the car in another city or even another country is paid separately - large companies usually provide such a service.
When renting, you are given a car with a full tank of fuel. Accordingly, you must return it in the same condition - the inspector will definitely check where the fuel level indicator is. If the tank is not full, the rental office will fill the car itself. And it will deduct the money for petrol from your account - only its price in that case may turn out to be significantly higher than the market price.
Another type of fine is for being late. Understanding that traffic jams, congestion, or unforeseen situations may occur on the roads, companies usually give the opportunity to return the car an hour later than the specified time (the rental contract is concluded for one or several days). But for being late by one hour and one minute, a fine is already charged in the amount of the daily rental rate.
Tricks of foreign insurance
All cars are provided insured. At the same time, the base price usually includes civil liability insurance, theft insurance - Theft Waiver or THW, as well as vehicle damage insurance - Collision Damage Waiver or CDW. Often the rate specifies the amount including the deductible. This is a deposit - its amount is $100-1,000 depending on the class of car - which is blocked on the card.
Damage of this amount in the event of an accident is in any case compensated at the client's expense. We advise not to take insurance with a deductible - in Europe, not everyone drives and parks carefully, and every scratch can cost a pretty penny. For this reason, the company usually offers to take Super CDW insurance instead of CDW. It will cost an additional 3-7 euros per day depending on the car. But even such insurance usually does not cover punctured tires. So when inspecting, be careful and it is better to refuse a car with bald tires.
Usually, insurance is valid in a limited number of countries. For example, in Spain, the contract usually specifies whether you can drive a rental car to neighboring Andorra, Portugal, or France. The first two countries can most often be visited without an additional payment, but for France and the rest of Europe you will have to pay an additional 3-7 euros per day. Also, in some offices you have to pay extra for a second driver included in the contract. Actually, of course, you can hand over the wheel to a partner regardless of the documents. But if an accident happens, the insurance company will not pay for the damage - it will all fall on the shoulders of the renter.
In addition, you need to carefully read the terms of the contract regarding mileage. Most often, rental companies do not limit the daily mileage of the car. But there are also cases when the contract states: no more than 200 (or 300) km per day. If you exceed it, you will have to pay extra; the price for extra distance is 0.5-1 euro per kilometer. Of course, no one will check you every day. If you take a car for three days, the main thing is to return it with the required mileage on the odometer. And how much you drove on which day does not interest the rental office.
Renting from Don Pedro
In large international companies, the rental price is usually higher than in local ones - there are plenty of the latter in tourist centers. Choosing between a well-known brand and some Don Pedro rent-a-car can be difficult.
In the event of a car breakdown or accident, you can go to any office of a well-known company - and they are in many cities, including small ones - where they will replace it with another car of the same class or even higher. Or simply call the hotline number, which will definitely be given when concluding the contract. For Don Pedro, however, doing such a thing would be extremely difficult: having a small office with five cars in a resort town, he or his representative will not be able to come 200 km and sort out the situation - let alone provide a backup car. As a result, time and money are lost on the return trip. Large companies can handle the situation with minimal inconvenience for the client. Naturally, such protection against troubles costs money - it will cost exactly the difference between prices at large and small offices.
The cost of car rental also varies by country. If in Spain, Turkey, Cyprus, and Greece there is great competition between rental companies, then prices are lower there. A small car for two or three people can be rented for 25 euros per day, and a weekly price will be around 130-150 euros. In contrast, in Germany or Italy the cost of such a service will be two to three times higher. The most expensive rental in Europe is in Scandinavia - in Denmark, Finland, or Norway it is difficult to find a car for 100 euros per day.
In developed European countries, there are usually no particular problems with rental. That cannot be said about smaller ones. The author of this article once had to look for a rental car in Albania. Nothing came of it - in one local office of a large company, all five cars were booked two weeks in advance, in another, one of the three cars was given for the needs of the manager, and the other two were broken. In third-world countries, especially far from tourist centers, such situations are quite real, so it is better to take care of the rental in advance.