Hi all,

I need help and fast.

I had a hire car booked for the end of the week for my holiday with my girlfriend, We were planning on roadtripping around europe - which my car hire company said was no problem at the time of booking.

I've just called them to confirm the booking etc. and they asked for my travel itinery.. and basically they're telling me i cant take the car over the italian/slovenian border.. the firm is Budget.. The guy said that this may be different if i book from the french side of geneva airport rather than the swiss side..

Can anyone tell me how the hell i hire a car from here that i can drive ALLOVER europe with? it seems budget's description of europe is Italy,Austria, France and Germany.....

I need some advice (before my girlfriend kills me for wrecking our holiday)

most companies in Europe will probably not permit you to go into Eastern Europe....I've hired many times and they have asked where I am going. The last time was at Schiphol in Holland.

I surely cant be the first person that's wanted to road trip into Croatia from swizterland though, surely?

And you're surely not the first who has received that negative answer

Actually - you can go, but if you have an accident, you're on your own... bad karma.

cheers

But i guess they check for insurance details at the border no?

Not necessarily.

If you hire from the EU they are no longer able to restrict you to countries that are members of the Schengen treaty and EU25. One thing they do though is increase the personal liability charge. I once hired a car for Italy and they would only pay out 50% on stolen goods and I had to cover 25% of the car value if it was stolen. Christmas...

Problem still with Croatia though Slovenia is then okay...

You should contact a company broker like www.holidayautos.co.uk they have a call centre also in Zurich.

I worked there for a bit. Most companies do not allow this but some will if I remember correctly. The point is the brokers deal with many companies and can search for which one will allow you.

Also if you check a smaller/local company (if they exsist in Switzerland) you would have more luck.

Hope that helps.

it's only when you go further East might you need specific documentation (potentially like "Carnet de Passage") that they will check at the border....

cheers for all of this !!!

:-))

i've got some leads to work on..

@richard.. i'll get up to the french side of the airport tonight i think then and see what they can do for me..

from my experience of traveling to Europe, it's only Hertz that allows you to cross a border to eastern europe and that's only with certain types of cars.

from my memory, you cannot take anything above the "intermediate" class
and in addition you cannot take any german make (VW, BMW, Mercedes,..),
typically you end up driving the likes of renault, peugeot, ford,...

when you cross the border to eastern europe (this happened to me once while crossing from Germany to Czech Republic in Hertz car), you may be asked to produce written permission from Hertz that allows you travel with the car to eastern europe (this usually comes in a form of special stamp on your contract, so don't forget to ask for it)

btw. this is not free advertisement for Hertz, I hate them, they are snakes,
they screwed me over so many times that's not even funny (and I'm their what they call "#1 Club" member), it's beyond belief that a company of that size makes so many mistakes (on my last trip I hired a car from Frankfurt, returning it next day in Prague. they charged me for that and month later I get another charge to my credit card for a trip from Prague to Berlin, so some bastard had a free ride I had to pay for and there is no way you can recover your cost)

Just looking at my last Europcar contract (from Kloten airport, Aug 07).

Permissible to use the vehicle in Switzerland, Norway and the EU15 minus Greece and the Canaries.

Expressly prohibited to cross the border into Italy with the Premium, Luxury and Special categories of vehicle.

This is not quite correct. With Hertz, even the smallest class cannot be taken into Greece for example while keeping the insurances. They allow those cars only to the extent that you have to pay for all damages, including the value of the car if it gets stolen.

that is quite possible, but the question asked was about eastern europe.
i don't have a contract in front of me, it is obviously little bit more specific,
while it may mention eastern europe, countries like russia, ukraine,... are excluded.

i don't know how it works when crossing border to greece.

Hi All,

I had problems hiring a car from Hungary to go in Romania, both East European countries with common border. National was the only to accept but with special conditions.
And both countries are in EU...

Marius

Besides Hertz it's also Sixt who allows taking their cars to some ce, ee countries, and I have found Sixt rates slightly better. No need to produce any extra permission/document when crossing borders, as far as I know.

Below is an excerpt from Sixt terms&conditions regarding cross border rentals:

Cross Border Rentals are allowed to the following countries:
Austria, Belgium, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Monaco, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden.
Audi, BMW, Mercedes, VW vehicles and jeeps/offroaders may not be taken into Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithunia, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
It is also allowed to enter the last-mentioned countries with all vehicles of car groups IVMR, SVMR and FVMR (including all mercedes) and vans.
In case of offence against Cross Border & Territorial Restrictions all insurances lose their validity.

Rent a car in Switzerland and return it in Slovenia. In Slovenia you can rent a car that you can enter in Croatia.