Originally Posted by
NickB
Europeans (who, let us face it constitute the overwhelming majority of car renters in Europe)
Is this true? I figured most locals would either be taking trains between city centers or have their own vehicle, and that most rental business would be for leisure travelers road tripping (often between open-jaw flights) or foreign businesspeople doing things like plant visits, etc.
Originally Posted by
NickB
Do not forget that Europe tends to have a relatively dense train/public transport network and for the kind of distances Americans would typically rely on a rental car, Europeans are much more likely to rely on rail/public transport.
This is absolutely true, but the rental car business exists nonetheless, and I'd think they would be incentivized to make their business more efficient and attractive to potential customers. And, I'd think that there are a lot of those potential customers who might be pushed to other means of transit, even inefficient means (what would you do to save 300 Euros or more?) by this existing fee structure, so there would be business to be gained by resolving it.