Are you a frequent traveler or looking for the best deal on a rental car in Europe?
I’m not necessarily a frequent traveler but I do typically take one multi-week trip internationally every year and a few shorter trips for business, holiday or fun adventures. I’m also a car enthusiast and if you are a petrolhead who has experience with hire cars you’re familiar with the frustrating uncertainty around renting a car - especially away from home.
My goal here -in my first post to SteemIt- is to outline a bit of my research and the rental reservation process I used when planning for my 30+ day time in Denmark. Hopefully this will help you find a good deal on a rental car. Ideally with a car that you’ll actually enjoy driving as well. Much of this information applies to renting in other parts of Europe well since I’ve used all these methods in Norway, Germany and Spain as well as the United States.
Car Rental Search Tools
I typically start with Priceline.com when searching for car rentals since it’s easy to use and seems to find the best prices available at any given time. Priceline also shows the total price rather than a deceptive pre-tax and fee price.
I don’t always complete booking via Priceline though since it seems like you can get more control over details of the rental by booking directly with the provider even if the price is the same.
For example: in your Priceline search you may see a car from Sixt available. When booking the car through Priceline you can request a child seat if you need one but the price for that seat and it’s availability is typically unclear. When booking directly on Sixt.com you can get the same price on the car (in my case anyway) AND get a guaranteed reservation on a child seat at a known price per day.
You can also make reservations for extras such as sat-nav and insurance or you can indicate whether you prefer a diesel (highly recommended if renting in Europe where diesel fuel is cheaper than gas and diesels are much more efficient).
Two other websites I have found useful for European auto rental research are:
AutoSlash allows you to initiate a search request and will then send you the best current prices for your itinerary. You can also enter the number of a current reservation and AutoSlash will monitor prices and email you when a better price comes up. Since car rentals are often free to cancel you can then rebook at the lower price.
EasyCar.com is simply another site similar to Priceline for finding deals. When I needed a car for a day in Bergen, Norway this site had the lowest price in that expensive rental market.
Real Life Reservation Example
Here’s what I was able to book for the aforementioned 30+ day stay in Denmark:
Company: Sixt
Car group: CDMR (Opel Corsa, VW Polo, Renault Clio or similar)
Length of rental: 30 days
Pick up location: Aalborg Airport, Denmark
Return location: Viborg, Denmark
Allowed kilometers: 2250 kms
Collision damage waiver: None (I rely on my Chase Sapphire Reserve card for this)
Child seats: 1 @ 185 DKK for the duration
Other options: Diesel preferred (no added cost)
Total cost: 3,153.94 DKK (Currently 500.28 USD or 424 EUR)
I chose Sixt as my rental company for this trip since the daily rate was the best and the one-way drop fee was low (550 DKK after taxes). One downside of choosing Sixt for my particular itinerary was that the car came with limited kilometers to use over the course of the rental period.
It seemed that was a fair tradeoff versus spending double on the daily rate with another company. Sixt does provide rentals with unlimited miles but that seems to apply to shorter term rentals.
The Car & Pickup Experience
I arrived at the Aalborg airport by local bus for the pickup and headed to the Sixt counter. It was a bit after midday and the small airport was very quiet. I was able to check in very quickly and smoothly at the Sixt counter without a wait.
For a car enthusiast it always feels like a gamble renting cars because you never know if you’ll get a decently fun/interesting vehicle or a completely boring “appliance” vehicle. Apart from renting via Silvercar, Turo or choosing a super high-end vehicle from one of the conventional companies I don’t know of a way to be assured ahead of time that you’ll received the type of car you want.
I was particularly interested to see what I would be assigned at pick up in Aalborg. Anxious isn’t the right word but I was hoping for something I found interesting yet skeptical that anything good would be coming up. You can’t be too choosy when booking the CDMR group (the only thing lower is something like a VW UP or Smart car).
At the Sixt counter I asked what type of vehicle I’d be getting and when I heard it was a BMW I decided this could be fun after all.
Apparently no small VW Polos “or similar” were available because the vehicle I was assigned turned out to be a black 2016 BMW 320d GT with a 6 speed manual transmission with about 18,000 kms on the odometer.
Enthusiast will note the GT designation with some derision since this is basically the BMW 3-Series that doesn’t know whether it wants to be a coupe, sedan, crossover or what exactly. If the Audi A7 is a beautiful example of a hatchback sedan then the BMW 3-Series GT cars are the ugly whale counterpoint. No complaints from me though as one of these beats an Opel Corsa any day.
The good bits are the 187 bhp and 295 lb-ft of torque from the turbo-diesel powerplant and the 6 speed manual transmission. You get commendable power combined with top-notch fuel economy. So far I’ve observed about 54 MPG on the trip computer (23 kms per liter). I’ll measure more accurately later and plan a post focused on the vehicle itself. I drove a 318d estate in Germany with an average of 37 MPG despite many miles spent at 100+ MPH so on the lower speed Danish roads I don’t see why the 54 MPG figure I’m seeing now wouldn’t be accurate.
The car was parked a short walk from the check in counter and I was able to choose between a few different child seats for my 1 year-old. Both the car and the child seat were in good condition and fairly clean. Both could have been cleaner but they were basically as expected (not exactly a compliment to rental companies). The child seat I chose was a Sparco brand seat and is suitable for forward or rear facing use.
The Sixt branding on the car could be slightly more subtle. There’s a Sixt badge decal on the rear trunk and the yellow “Diesel” label on the fuel filler door make it pretty obvious to other drivers that you’re in a rental car. A little embarrassing and slightly more obvious than some other Sixt or Europcar vehicles I’ve driven.
Overall I’m quite please with the deal and rental experience. I have another car reserved with Europcar for a second part of the trip so it remains to be seen how that compares. I’m not expecting too much but perhaps it’ll be a nice surprise as well. The price was good and that’s what matters for my plans at this point.
More later on this particular BMW from Sixt such as: driving experience, fuel economy, trim level details etc.
What about you? Do you have a tip on finding a good deal or getting the most desirable car when renting? Is the type of car you're assigned important when renting?