Inter-country one-way car rental in Europe?
- By
- Aparna Patel
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- 21 Jul, 2023
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Hertz lists cars that need to be returned to the origin country, and if you rent one of those they waive the one way fee. The website listing such deals for europe is http://www.hertz-transfer.eu/.
Post Rental Update: I found it hard to call and reserve a vehicle this way: it has to be done a couple days in advance, since they cant hold specific vehicles for you. Plus calling while travelling can be inconvenient, the call drops, etc. So I brought the list of available cars (a screenshot taken a few minutes before) to the counter and I asked for one of the cars in the list. The cust serv rep had to call someone to understand the situation, but she was able to offer me a car from the list without a cross border fee. The rental cost for the day was about ~250 euros, very expensive, but better than 850 euros.
I asked a couple other rental car companies if they had a similar deal available, and Avis did have it, and were more flexible on the price. In the end I just took the train. It would come to the same price, but I didn’t have to worry about parking or returning a vehicle.
PS: I imagine a couple more companies would have a similar listing available. If anyone lists them in the comments I will add to the answer.
Using meta-search such as Skyscanner’s “Car Hire” tab, seems that you cannot do it without paying enormous extra fee.
3 days with pickup and drop off at Berlin Schoenefeld cost between €100 for very small compact like VW Fox, to €300 for luxury car such as Mercedes C class. On the other hand same 3 days with drop off at Budapest Airport range from €700 to €1000 pretty much regardless of the size.
Also seems that the smaller local companies, which tend to be cheaper, to not allow it at all.
Europcar gives 697.87 for a basic rental, I plugged in the dates April 4-23.
AutoEurope, which seems to be AVIS, quotes 772 for the same dates.
This site has some good info you could follow up on.
And I realize you are asking in case someone recently has done this same thing and thus can give a fairly definitive answer, but, as usual, Google it. Don’t sit around and wait!
- Can I buy a SIM card in Germany for a short duration?
- Can I apply for a passport in the country I'm in so I can travel to my home country?
Yes you can do that. Most european car rental companies will allow that. Herz, Sixt/Budget, Avis etc will all have no problem with that.
A rental car in Germany will cost you around 40+ (++ depeding on the car) per day.
Driving it and dropping it in Hungary will cost you 250+ (++ …) per day.
So if you drive from the German-Austrian border to Hungary in half a day, the price difference is not too bad. If you drive it from the Danish border to Hungaria, it becomes stupidly expensive.
To sum it up: Since you gave us neither the type of car you want, nor the place where you start off, nor where you drop the car, I can only make the general suggestion that it will be cheaper to rent a car anywhere in Germany, drive as far as you can to the border, maybe even to Austria, drop the car there, rent a new one and drive the rather short last distance either by another rental car or even by train.
Credit:stackoverflow.com‘