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Roman Holiday rental car

Roman Holiday rental car

Old Jun 9, 2015, 11:52 am
  #1  
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Roman Holiday rental car

I am in the process of setting up a two - three week pilgrimage to the mother country with a couple of older family members with limited mobility. The requested / planned itinerary is flying into Rome, touring around Campobasso region and departing from Naples. As this is early we could reverse the entry and exit. But I am having no luck with reasonable auto rentals. Any suggestions?
Dublin_rfk is offline  
Old Jun 10, 2015, 6:16 am
  #2  
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car rental in italy is very high. to look at close to best rate, look at auto europe. i think one must take insurance.
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Old Jun 13, 2015, 2:53 am
  #3  
 
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Originally Posted by Dublin_rfk
I am in the process of setting up a two - three week pilgrimage to the mother country with a couple of older family members with limited mobility. The requested / planned itinerary is flying into Rome, touring around Campobasso region and departing from Naples. As this is early we could reverse the entry and exit. But I am having no luck with reasonable auto rentals. Any suggestions?
My number one tip would be to purchase car rental excess insurance before you travel. (I'm not sure if these types of products are available in the US but presume that they must be.) Car rental companies will always try to sell you insurance add-ons when you collect the car. Although your previously quoted price will include basic insurance, there may be a very large excess to pay if the car is stolen or in the case of an accident. The rental company will offer you an add-on insurance that will reduce the excess to zero. Typically this will cost around $25-$35 per day. As an alternative, you can purchase this insurance yourself through a number of specialized companies such as insurance4carhire.com or icarhireinsurance.com. (I have used the former for a number of years, and when I needed to claim they paid up.) These companies will charge you around $4.50 per day for exactly the same product.

It would be a good idea to get a legitimate car rental discount code, or take advantage of some large organizations' rates (such as an airline). For example, British Airways partners with Avis, and you can get some decent rates booking throughout the BA Website ba.com. (As far as I know you don't need to fly on BA to qualify for the rates, but as a caution you should check this first.) In my recent experience, the 'return to a different location' fee charged by Avis through the BA Website is relatively low.

Another tip is to download a GPS app on your smartphone rather than pay the car rental company a daily fee for theirs. I use CoPilot, but there are plenty of them available. They don't require your 'phone to be connected to the Internet (like Google Maps etc.) so switch you data roaming off! If you do this, it's a good idea to have your own windscreen cradle. You can get these on ebay for less than $10.

A word of caution: Driving in Naples (or Rome for that matter) is not for the faint hearted at all!
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