Frankfurt am Main Travel Forum

I will need to rent a car in Frankfurt-Airport. Someone could give me some tips about more cheap car rentals. Someone know about these agencies below ?

www.rentalcargroup.com
www.autoeurope.com
www.sixtusa.com
www.economycarrentals.com

They are all multi-national agencies, simliar to Hertz/Avis etc

Just find which has the best price/convenience for you by getting quotes. I am sure car hire is as tightly-regulated in Germany as in the UK.

National firms are usually cheaper than multi-nationals, so it might be worth getting online quotes from those as well, if any turn up when you google.

Hi
Try: http://www.webcarhire.com/

They deal with a lot of the car rental companies!

John

Try e-sixt, although I think they have since changed their site to just...sixt . I found them to be the cheapest rental for the class i was looking at. But I have heard that prices are now similar across the various companies. Look for their special offers and only book on the internet. You can get charged more if you use their call centre.

> I am sure car hire is as tightly-regulated in Germany as in the UK.

Regulated? Safety-wise perhaps, but certainly not when it comes to prices.

Best would be to check if your airline, hotel or credit card issuer co-operates with a particular car-rental.

I meant safety-wise.

I assumed there was no more an issue with safety of vehicles in Germany than in the UK. Prices, of course, vary massively (which is why I suggested looking at German firms as well as multi-nationals).

Here is another website for car rentals in Germany:

http://www.autovermietungen.de/deutschland.html

Sixt is now Budget - sounds cheaper ;-)

Renting a car in Germany is much more expensive than in other parts of the world, including the US. I have looked for smaller companies with lower rates for a Germany visit and while living in Germany the biggest part of my life I have never seen any. There are no rent-a-dents or such companies where you could get an older car for less money. When I went on business trips and needed a rental car my enterprise had a special deal with Avis - but normally they are really expensive.

I have the impression Thrifty has the best rates now, and then comes Budget.

P.S. As I see now that you travel to Germany I can recommend you the mobile phone providers T-Mobile and O2 (Vodafone) ;-) SIM cards with both providers cost about 20 Euro including talktime. Those two have the best coverage.

> Sixt is now Budget - sounds cheaper ;-)


It's the other way around. Sixt/Budget is now Sixt (and has been so for years) as (German) Sixt separated from (American) Budget, saying "Budget" would sound too cheap.

Oh dear!

Turtleshell, I absolutely believe what you say.

But why is Sixt not noted on the German website I mentioned earlier but Budget? I would understand if it were on an English/American website...

This made me think Sixt had now changed to Budget. You know, sometimes I miss German business news at the other end of the world... ;-)

Kakapo2,
No idea, really.

But Sixt and Budget are two different companies and compete against each other:

http://www.budget.de
http://www.sixt.de

As far as I know, Sixt is market-leader in Germany. Maybe they think, they don't need to pay the makers of the website you mentioned to get listed.

> It's the other way around. Sixt/Budget is now Sixt

> But Sixt and Budget are two different companies

Wanted to say that I didn't even know that Budget is still (or again) around in Germany. First, Budget was Sixt in Germany and Sixt was Budget in the USA. Then it was only Sixt in Germany, now they both seem to compete against each other.
Well, their problem anyway ...

Hi Ya all,

All this chatter must be confusing poor old Cassio!

I rented a car last July from Munich Airport and used the webcarhire.com site previously mentioned. I took the second cheapest option (from about 5 or6 rental companies which were available on that site) ie. small car. It cost me 27.20 euros per day (I did not take the Insurance option) and it was with Dollar/Thrifty. Ok so they did not have a desk at the airport but I was picked up and driven to their nearby depot and dropped back at the airport when I returned. I could have chosen a company with an airport desk such as Europecar or National etc but it was a couple of Euros more expensive. It worked out Ok. To my surprise I received a Mercedes A200 diesel automatic for that rate (just lucky?) and that certainly meant that it was the cheapest rental I have had anywhere in the world. I can't understand why you are all saying Germany is expensive - check out the site and see!

Just checked the site myself and for a week in June from Frankfurt, webcarhire are quoting the following: Dollar/Thrifty $25.88 (VW POLO), Budget $28.89 (Corsa), right up to luxury cars!

My regards to everyone.
John