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Here we describe how we book rental cars to save money, describe our experience with different rental car companies from different parts of the world and one bad experience with a European car rental company.
Description
Before we started traveling full time, we were always anxious when booking a rental car. Our anxiety stems from renting from a company that we never heard of. Throw in some bad on-line reviews and we would question our decision if we really need a car to get around.
But based on renting 37 cars from different parts of the world between 2021 and 2024, we can say for a fact that there was really nothing to be worried about. We were just worried about the unknown. I decided to write this blog because of one bad experience I had with a rental car company in Lisbon, Portugal in 2023 that I felt I should share. I also wanted to share what I learned in renting cars from different countries.
At the end of this blog, you will find a summary table of our experience with many rental car companies. Majority had “No Issues”. “No Issues” means there were no hassles, like pressuring us to take on additional insurance during pick-up and tacking on additional charges on vehicle return. But to be clear, we always return the car full of gas and are careful not to add any scratches or dings to the rental vehicle.
Which Company To Rent From?
Before traveling internationally, we used to rent in the US from global companies like Hertz, Avis, Enterprise and their sister companies. But when we began to travel internationally, we sometimes had to book with local or small companies because the international company rates were just too high.
In general, our experience with local and small rental car companies were positive, though not stellar. There were no additional charges tacked on when we returned the rental cars as long as there was no additional damage and a full tank of gas.
We do still pay attention to the customer rating and try to book with the highest rated car company.
You Get What You Pay For (In General)
Our take on why international car rental companies charge more is because they maintain newer and low mileage fleet of vehicles. If you look at the table at the end of this blog, the vehicles we rented from international companies were sub 100K miles.
Small and local companies try to squeeze as much rental life out of their cars so their inventories are older and higher mileage. Still, we never had any mechanical issues or breakdown (except for a flat tire).
Insurance
Pay Attention To
There are two insurance coverages we pay attention to. One is Collision Damage (CD) and the other is Third Party Liability (TPL). In a nutshell, CD pertains to expenses applicable to the rental vehicle, meaning it pays for whatever damage happens to it. In a sense, this would have a cap as it should not exceed the vehicle’s value.
TPL provides protection against damages to someone else’s vehicle or property or injury to someone else in case of an accident. As you can imagine, the sky can be the limit when it comes to TPL.
Normally, CD and TPL are included in the rental fee. Most of the time, the CD coverage would be a low amount and the car rental company would offer additional insurance to bring down the renter’s liability.
TPL is normally mandatory, but we were once surprised that it was lacking when we booked through a third party booking website. We failed to look closely on the “what is included” section of the rental booking. We saw CD was listed but did not notice that TPL was not. It was only after checking the rental voucher that we saw in bold red that TPL was not included and that there was no way of adding it. Fortunately, the rental reservation was cancellable.
Avoiding Buy-Down Insurance
Buy-down insurance to us is any insurance that the car rental company offers. The additional insurance would reduce the renter’s liability. But after examining the fine print, we always wonder what is really being covered because there were exceptions, a lot of exceptions.
We avoid the buy-down insurance by using a credit card that has Collision Damage Waiver (CDW) coverage. Our credit card does require us to decline any additional insurance offered by the car rental company for us to be covered by the CDW. Additional requirements are that the rental contract does not exceed 30 continuous calendar days and renting exotic/luxury or recreational vehicles are not allowed.
We used our credit card’s CDW benefit once when we had a flat tire and the rental car had to be towed back to the rental car company. This resulted in an additional charge from the car rental company of around 500 Euros (300 for replacing two tires (can’t replace one according to the rental car company) and 200 for towing). All we had to do was to submit good documentation and a separate itemized bill of the additional charges from the rental car company.
Our credit card reimbursed the 500 Euros after submitting the necessary documents on-line. I admit that it took some time to assemble the supporting documents and craft a letter explaining where to find the required information. But this effort is much better than unnecessarily spending money on buy-down insurance on 39 car rentals so far.
Taking photos of the car being towed helped strengthen our reimbursement request from the credit card company. The photo showed five important pieces of information – the towing process, the car’s license plate, the flat tire, the location where it happened and the date/time. The license plate is shown in the rental contract. The towing process and the flat tire explains the 500 Euro detailed bill from the rental car company. The photo’s location and date/time features prove that it happened in the country where the car was rented from and when.
Should You Buy Additional Insurance?
The answer is it depends on you. For us, the math does not work so we never buy additional insurance. Having explained the flat tire incident earlier, it would have cost us more than 500 Euros had we bought additional insurance on all 39 car rentals.
Having explained the CDW credit card benefit, the answer lies in your risk tolerance and driving skills. We are risk averse but this is tempered by using our credit card with CDW benefit. In essence, the card “has our back“.
As for driving skills, I have yet to be in an accident in over 40 years of driving experience. The keys are to be patient, eyes on the road and always practice good following distance (the two second rule). Even with defensive driving, we still have some close calls. It always helps to have a co-pilot and another set of eyes on the road.
Ways To Save On Car Rental
Car rental rates are based on supply and demand. Low supply and high demand means higher rental rates. So we book early and check often. This is only possible with a cancellable rental car reservation.
We book as soon as we know we have travel plans. We pre-pay (whether deposit or full), if needed, as long as the reservation is cancellable. And we have cancelled a few reservations because our plans changed and always get our deposit refunded. We have not yet had to call our credit card company to contest refunding a deposit.
In 2024, we booked a rental car in Oslo, Norway four months out. The daily rate was horribly high. But when we checked five days before our scheduled arrival, we were surprised to see that the rate came down by almost $1,000 for a rental period of 28 days. Even more surprising was that the rental rate went down more the day of our arrival.
What we are saying is that car rental rates fluctuates. It is better to have one in your back pocket if the rate goes up and cancellable reservation if the rate goes down.
Before Driving Off
We do the following before driving off the rental car lot:
- Inspection – look for existing damages – inside and out including the tire rims for scratches.
- Fuel – take a photo of the fuel gauge. Look for the fuel release lever and find out the type of fuel.
- Spare tire – verify there is a spare tire and the necessary tools. Please note that in Europe, spare tires are no longer provided. In Chile, we ran into an unfortunate couple that had a flat tire but without a tire wrench.
- Documentation – take photos and videos of the car’s exterior. We document the interior if we see stains or rips. Review the damage report to verify that all visible damages are included. We had to go back to our photos only once to dispute a claim by the rental car company in Lisbon, Portugal (in 2023) about a scratch that already existed.
- Mirrors – adjust the side and rear mirror as needed.
- GPS Navigation – set-up the GPS navigation before leaving.
- Go Through The Gears – if a manual transmission, go through the gears including the reverse. Our fourth European rental car had an unusual reverse where the shifter had to lifted before the reverse gear can engage.
Tire Pressure Gauge
I bring a small pressure gauge when we travel. We rented 15 cars in 2023 and encountered low tire pressure warning on seven. That is almost half of the rentals. One was an actual flat tire, three needed air, another was losing pressure overnight and the tire pressure monitoring system (TPMS) light kept illuminating in the remaining two (see the table at the end).
Most cars’ TPMS only lets you know if the pressure in any of the tires is lower than the set pressure. It does not tell you which tire has the issue. The only way to tell if you are indeed losing pressure is by using a tire pressure gauge and periodically taking measurements.
Our Bad Experience
We have to tread this subject carefully for legal reasons. So we will just describe what happened.
Of the 21 rental cars we rented between 2022 and 2023, eleven were Fiat. These were one Fiat 500, seven Fiat 500 Mini, one Fiat Cronos, one Fiat Panda, and another was a Fiat Tipo (diesel station wagon). Of the seven Fiat 500 Mini, four were rented from Centauro. The Fiat Tipo was also rented from Centauro.
One of the Fiat 500 Mini from Centauro still had the brand new smell at less than 4,000 kms on the odometer but had the leaking tire. We would get a low tire pressure light in the morning after airing it up the day before. It would lose about 9 psi of pressure overnight (I used my tire pressure gauge).
Two more Fiat 500 Mini from Centauro that had 60K and 70K kms had the check engine light come on indicating that the automatic start/stop feature was unavailable. Finally, the Fiat Tipo that had about 70K kms, its TPMS turned on approximately every 150 kms (we would reset and it come on again).
Rental Car Companies Experience Summary
The table below summarizes our experience with different rental car companies. Rental information is grouped by year, then arranged alphabetically by rental companies.
2021 (3 total)
| Company Rent Duration | City Country | Month | Car Make and Model Odometer | Issue |
| Centauro 21 days | Madrid, Spain | October | Hyundai. Forgot to get odometer info | Low tire pressure |
| Thrifty, 2 cars 30 days each | Vienna, Austria | August and September | Forgot make/model info. Forgot to get odometer info | One car had low tire pressure before leaving the rental place |
2022 (6 Total)
| Company Rent Duration | City Country | Month | Car Make and Model Odometer | Issue |
| Alamo 14 days | Copenhagen, Denmark | May | No information 4K kms | None |
| Locauto 8 days | Palermo, Sicily, Italy | April | Fiat Panda 27K kms | None |
| Avis 10 days | Mallorca, Spain | March | Fiat 500 Mini Forgot to get odometer info | None |
| Locauto (Enterprise) 9 days | Cagliari, Sardinia, Italy | April | VW Up 19K kms | None |
| Locauto (Enterprise) 5 days | Naples, Italy | April | Toyota Aygo 26K kms | None |
| Thrifty 3 days | Mahon, Minorca,Spain | March | Forgot to get car information Forgot to get odometer information | None |
2023 (15 Total)
| Company Rent Duration | City, Country | Month | Car Make and Model Odometer | Issue |
| Angrauto 3 days | Terceira Island, Azores, Portugal | April | Ibiza Forgot to get odometer info | None |
| Avis 7 days | Malta | March | Ford Fiesta 38K kms | None |
| Avis 3 days | Sydney, NSW, Australia | June | MG 15K kms | None |
| Centauro 14 days | Lisbon, Portugal | April | 1st Fiat 500 Mini with 60K kms 2nd Fiat 500 Mini with 4K kms 3rd Fiat 500 Mini with 70K kms 4th Fiat 500 Mini with 70K kms 5th Fiat Tipo with 70K kms | Went through five rental cars in 2 weeks. 1st and 4th cars had check engine light (Start/Stop was unavailable). 2nd car smelled new but one tire was leaking air. 3rd had a flat tire (record show tire had a previous puncture). 5th had faulty TPMS (would illuminate when the tire pressure was correct). |
| East Coast Rental, 2 days | Cairns, Queensland, Australia | June | Kia Rio 15K kms | None |
| EMSA (Avis), 5 days | Puerto Natales, Chile | December | Renault Duster 127K kms | None |
| EuropCar 4 days | Santiago de Compostela, Spain | April | Fiat 500 Mini 13K kms | None |
| Fri2Rent 5 days | Ljubljana, Slovenia | August | Toyota Aygo 70K kms | Low tire pressure in the morning (cold nights) |
| Guerin 5 days | Porto, Portugal | February | Toyota Yaris 22K kms | None |
| Hertz 5 days | El Calafate, Argentina | December | Fiat Cronos 46K kms | None |
| Ilha Verde 3 days | Faial, Azores, Portugal | April | Ibiza 14K kms | Low tire pressure |
| Ilha Verde 4 days | Sao Jorge, Azores, Portugal | April | Ford Fiesta Forgot to get odometer info | TPMS would illuminate when the tire pressure was correct |
| Locauto 18 days | Venice, Italy | August | Fiat 500 Mini 40K kms | None |
| Madeira Car Rental 7 days | Funchal, Madeira, Portugal | February | IbizaNo info on odometer | None |
| Micauto 7 days | Sao Miguel, Azores, Portugal | April | Citroen C3 18K kms | Low tire pressure |
| Oasis Rental Car 3 days | Pico Island, Azores, Portugal | April | Opel Forgot to get odometer info | None |
| Rent A Car 11 days | Ajaccio, Corsica, France | October | Fiat 500 4.5K kms | None |
| Sicily By Car 2 days | Florence, Italy | September | Mitsubishi Space Star 72K kms | None. International drivers license required. |
2024 (13 total)
| Company Rent Duration | City Country | Month | Car Make and Model Odometer | Issue |
| Alamo 15 days | Tromso, Norway | August | Toyota Corolla Hybrid 5K kms | None |
| Alamo 5 days | Rovaniemi, Finland | August | Kia Ceed Hybrid, 28K kms | None |
| Avis 3 days | Flores, Guatemala | April | Toyota Aygo 17K kms | None |
| Budget 25 days | Oslo, Norway | July | Suzuki S-Cross 4×4 Hybrid 49K kms Toyota Yaris Hybrid 34K kms | Stopped by the police twice because the Suzuki car was reported stolen. It also did not have current registration paper in the glove box. Had to exchange the car at Alesund for the Toyota. |
| Budget 5 days | Calama, Chile | February | VW Polo 23K kms | None |
| Europcar 8 days | Balmaceda, Chile | February | Peugeot Landtrek 245K kms | None |
| Hertz 5 days | Temuco, Chile | February | Suzuki Swift 7.4K kms | None |
| Icerental4x4, 13 days | Reykjavik, Iceland | June | Dacia Duster 4×4 with rooftop camper 67K kms | None |
| Sixt 5 days | Bariloche, Argentina | January | Renault Logan 3.2K kms | None |
| Sixt 9 days | Salta, Argentina | January | Toyota Yaris 64K kms | None |
| Sixt 9 days | Vagar, Faroe Islands | July | Renault Clio 4K kms | None |
| Yes 5 days | Auckland, New Zealand | October | Toyota Aqua, 130K kms | None |
| Yes 28 days | Christchurch, New Zealand | November | Toyota Aqua, 180K kms | None |
The Bottom Line
After compiling the table above, it is pretty obvious that the well known rental car companies such as Avis, Enterprise, Hertz, Sixt and their sister companies provide lower mileage cars than those that are not well known globally. With lower mileage comes dependability compared to higher mileage cars. They do tend to charge more compared to the smaller or local rental car companies but you get a more decent vehicle.
We never encountered any rental car company, multinational like Hertz or local like Fri2Rent, that tried to nickel and dime us. So long as we honor the contract by returning it on time with full tank and no additional damages, we had no issues or any surprise charges.
Purchasing additional insurance is a preference depending on one’s comfort level. Sure, the possibility of getting into an accident is always out there but that can be mitigated by practicing defensive driving, i.e. do not tailgate, do not speed, eyes and mind on the road, etc. Using a credit card that provides CDW coverage is all we need to have peace of mind