How to rent car in Europe, meet the Rental Cars

If you intend to rent a car to enjoy the beautiful Italian roads, be sure to read this post! Here you will find tips, and a bit of our experience with the car rental.

How about we start from the beginning? How to get the PID?

The first thing you need to keep in mind is that unlike the US where you only need to have your LICENSE within the validity, in Europe it is necessary to have the PID (International driving permit). Be calm´cause that it's not a monster of 7 heads to get this document. You enter the site of DETRAN (in Brazil), pay the DUDA (Cod.:204-6) of R$ 139,30 ( price 2018) and then schedule the day to get your wallet ready. The PID comes with the same photo and date of expiry of your current REGISTRATION, so it's worth to check out if it´s to renew your CNH so the PID will lasts longer. As we live in Rio de Janeiro everything was done by the Detran – RJ. Here the link of the PID . I believe it is not too different in other States.

 

Choosing and reserving a car

You don´t need the PID to make the reservation, in fact you don't have to, but we told in first place so you won´t have a last-minute run to get it, or forget it or even overcrowding at the DETRAN.

When we started the price survey, We found a wonderful site to get great values . Do you know decolar.com? So RENTAL CARS is the decolar.com of cars. There you can quote in several companies at the same time, that is a huge time-saver. Here the link to the Rental Cars.

Below is the step by step we did just to illustrate.

The site is very simple to use, you select the country, City, pickup location and period of rental and pickup and return time. READY!

It will appear several car options, so the selection depends on your need. You choose the type of car, and then the pickup location to view the options, and click reserve. To complete your reservation you need to login or register on the site.

 

When booking you can choose extra items as, full tank, highchair and GPS. Besides the type of insurance, we use the most basic.

 

 

The amount of the rental will be charged on your credit card, remember that it needs to be INTERNATIONAL, and you will pay IOF rate.
Once completed you will receive by email the rent vouchers, simple as that!

 

SUPER important tips

Withdrawal of the car

Arrive before your selected time so it won´t disturb your plans. you never know the size of the queue, or the delay in filling up the papers, or even the delay in finding the booking office or to withdraw the car out of the garage. At the airport of Bologna linger until the person responsible for the keys appear for example.

Remember to take the voucher, your PID license (for the primary and secondary drivers), passport and credit card to make the rental franchise besides addition to any other fee you have to pay on time.

 

ONE WAY

If you are getting a car in one city and will return in another, a ONE WAY fee will be charged, in our case from Florence to Rome by the Enterprise it was charged 69 euros and it must be paid on time.

 

GPS

The value of the GPS is charged per day. It costs around 9 euros plus some fees 12 euros and must be paid at the time too.

We used only for the first rent, in fact we use a router ... Why hadn't more GPS for rent (Although I have requested when booking) so they gave us an internet router. It was great and even more useful because we could use whatsapp among other applications to talk with our family and friends. We could enjoy right after I spent 20 min burning my brain cells trying to crack the password of the wi-fi, since they wrote everything together and I thought that all the characters (including the space) were part of the password. Until a divine click made me notice that PSW was actually stating that the PASSWORD was that (a lot of anger after that).

 

Then we learned how to use an application offline maps and let go the paid GPS . We are counting on our experience with He here . It's worth reading it helps a lot!!

 

Card lock

This detail almost broke our plans. Luckily, a few weeks before the trip we decided to confirm and review all reservations and rental vouchers. Like who was driving was someone else, We put him as main driver and I as secondary. What we had not paid attention is that the main driver it´s the one who should have a credit card to hold the rent franchise. They block this value, and then when you return they release again. The problem is that the lock was approximately 1600 EUROS!!! With the change in the situation that it is in Brazil you can imagine that besides beeing an international card it had to have a HUGE limit.

So I asked my card limit to increase, and we freeze because we had to change the main conductor of the reservation for me. and if we lose the value of the reservation? and if we had to make a new reservation just to change drivers? With the current quotation it would be a giant hole in our trip budget. In addition I was afraid that the contact with the Rental Cars were suffered and time consuming for this type of change.

But that's when I fell in love with Rental Cars. Their service is amazing! They are super attentive, educated, and helpful. You call a number that directs your call to a call center in Portuguese. You don't have to be afraid is very simple . I explained my problem to the attendant that in very few minutes updated the reservations, and told us that it didn't have any difference of values. (UFA!)

 

Exchange of car at the withdrawal

When we rented the car in Florence, and filled up with our bags, we realize that the trip of more than 4 hours in the car would be complicated by the squeeze that it become. Mainly for my parents in the back seat. We went back to the rental store that is a mini little door and ask for a car with a bigger trunk. Luckily they had a Fiat 500 L. The car looks like a Fiat 500 I took the good ferment! It is incredible comfortable and it has a GIGANTIC trunk. It's not a dream to drive it through Tuscany, I know, but we can't deny that was a nice car, Super complete, very economical, air bags to all sides and with a sensational trunk! We recommend to 4 people with tranquility!

Although we were worried sick about the price difference we'd have to pay for the car, We were very grateful to know that would be just 20 EUROS, I asked if it was for each day of rent, and to our joy was for all days.

Restricted areas

Several cities in Italy has areas with restriction passages for cars, the Centre of Florence for example during the week is PROHIBITED! Only taxis and cars registered of residents are allowed. If you leak this lock you can be assured that you will receive a ticket. The friendly Luciano, owner of the hotel Tourist House Battistero, that we stayed in Florence, warned us about it because we wanted to park the car and get the bags on the door of the hotel, thinking it was simple. He informed us to move with the car through the signal that shows the lock (that is very simple, It's just a sign flashing) and when we got there we should told him the license plate of our car, then he would report for the authorities via e-mail the reason for entry, etc ... and so the ticket would be avoided, as a matter of fact it happened. Check out for these restrictions, and don't be ashamed to ask for tips on hotels, all that we've been through were extremely attentive.

(Note for the next trip: We need to lose the shame of taking pictures with people to put on the blog, and remember to write down the names...)

FINES

Now, After the trip we had a charge on my credit card, a fine ... two actually. I know I never want to go through that but it happens, so I made a post telling how was the whole process of the fine, notices and payments. Click here If you want to know how to act in these situations anything nice.

 

The Rental cars works in other countries too but as we only use in Italy we are talking specifically of that experience. InWe didn´t receive a penny for this advertisement of the Rental Cars, it´s really a tip! by our experience as a user! Rent other times for sure!