Jaunted

Fill 'er Up!
Just like in the U.S., rental agencies in other countries require you to return the car with a full tank of gas. That might be expensive and a bit of a hassle, but it’s not nearly as expensive as paying for a tank of gas at the rental agency’s rate, which is often 50% more than you’d pay at the pump. So be sure to top it off before you turn it in.

“Station Charges,” “Road Fund Fees,” and “Environmental Surcharges”
Now for the fun, “we’re not in Kansas anymore, Toto” charges that caught even us by surprise. Though we got a great deal for a recent rental in France from car agency aggregator Auto Europe, when we got our rental voucher to present to the agency counter, we found a few incidental fees thrown in that we’d have to pay for at the time of rental. None of them were deal-breakers, but still, we like to be fully informed.

Did you know that when you rent a car for pick up at a train station or airport, you might be on the hook for a “Station Fee”? In France, it was 27 euros per rental, but the rate varies by country. There was also an additional “Road Fund” fee for upkeep of the national routes that worked out to about 1.89 euros a day. Again, not horrible, but sort of annoying.

Here’s the other fun fee that Americans are particularly susceptible to: the “Environmental Surcharge” for renting an automatic in the land of standard transmissions. Supposedly this is to make up for the increased carbon footprint made by the extra gas automatics use. Personally, we think it’s just to be snotty. At only 7 euros, it wasn’t too bad.

All told, the extra fees worked out to about 50 euros, which is no small addition to the bill—over $70 at today’s rates. Our advice to you? When searching for your rental, plan to pay about $50 more for your rental than the initial quote.

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