I was looking for the cheapest rental with AC I could find to pick up at Marseille airport and drop off at Nice airport 5 days later. To my surprise, when dropoff charges and VAT were included, Sixt came out much cheaper than other "name brand" companies, and even cheaper than a couple of deep discount companies I'd never heard of (and which required non-refundable up-front payment). Which was great, because I happen to have this platinum Sixt card I got a while back due to a message on FT that it could be had simply for supplying proof of platinum status with Delta or Starwood (or a few others). I rarely rent from Sixt, but figured, why not?

So, as I said, I was looking for cheap (which was not to be had, at least in dollar terms, but at least in relative terms) so I booked an EDMR (Renault Clio or similar). I knew I had a shot at an upgrade with the platinum card, but would've been okay with the EDMR if necessary to keep the rate down.

The first surprise came when I decided I needed GPS. With the EDMR car, it was listed at something like 6-7 euros per day. If I rented just one car class higher, the same GPS device would cost me something like 12-16 euros per day? Why would it matter what class of car I rented to add a GPS unit?

Anyway, after I booked the car, I remembered that I had not selected the GPS unit. So I called Sixt to see if I could add it after the fact. I anticipated a complicated discussion to try to get the lower rental rate for the GPS unit. Figuring the "home office" would be more adept at handling this, I called a number in Munich. The rep could see my rental, but evidently thought the rate was something like 350 euros (the rate I'd booked was something like US $230 or so). She told me if I wanted to add GPS the rate would be about 500 euros or so. Evidently she wasn't able to simply add a GPS unit rental and was looking at the cheapest car that had one built-in, or something. For that price, I figured I'd just buy a new GPS device of my own.

Along the way in that discussion, though, I re-discovered the enormous price difference between the rates given to someone renting from Germany vs. the rate available for rentals from the US. It's way cheaper to rent from the US (in my experience).

So I called the US Sixt office and asked if I could add a GPS unit. "Just a minute, let me check," she said. A minute later: "Yep, got it added, for no additional cost."

Cool! I don't know how or why, but I got the GPS for free!

Of course, I asked her to send me an email confirmation, and I had that printout with me when I picked up the car. But I didn't need it. They had the record with the right rate and with the GPS added at no additional cost.

So what about the upgrade? Recall that this was between Marseille and Nice in July: "I'm giving you a convertible, if that's okay with you, and if you don't have too much luggage?"

Cool! Again! A Renault Megane cabriolet with red leather seats. My wife was impressed. And the GPS was built-in.

Only, I couldn't get the GPS to find the little town in Provence where we were first headed. Turns out the GPS' map DVD was "Germany and major roads of Europe." Uh-oh!

Took the DVD into the office and explained the problem, which they resolved by giving me a Tom-Tom GPS unit to take with me. Problem solved.

But then, as we were just programming the Tom-Tom and about to leave, the rep came running out, flagging us down. "I'm sorry, I can't give you the Tom-Tom, because you're not returning it to this station."

After some checking on her computer, "Okay, I'm giving you a BM." It didn't sound as funny then as it seems now, because I knew she meant BMW. It wasn't a convertible, but it was a BMW 320 with built-in GPS including live traffic updates and re-routing (not trivial for Provence and the Riviera in late July). And of course, since the car was a diesel, the fuel bill ended up lower as well.

Cooler and cooler!

All-in-all, a pretty darn good deal for a US-based EDMR rate with GPS thrown in for free! What's that, about a 5- or 6-class upgrade?