I ran into a weird issue today. I ran Autoslash for a rental in Berlin, Germany. It showed me pay later rates Priceline with Avis and Budget at the location I selected. This was the price that came up first:



I assume it defaulted to “Germany” for “Driver’s License issued by” because I am in Germany.

I plan to rent with my US license. So I switched the country to US. That repriced the reservation and it became significantly more expensive.



I saw the same behavior for Budget and Avis.

This raises a number of questions:

1. Why is that - why are PL charging US renters more than German renters? The quote returned by Autoslash showed the lower price.

2. What happens if I pick the German license and lower rate, and then show up with my US license?

3. I have rented many times before in Germany and other European countries, but generally booked from the US, and so presumably it always defaulted to US. Would I have received better rates if I had teleported to Germany/France/Spain/… to make my booking?