Car Hire/Rental in Carcassone, France.

Faston

Hello there,

Could anyone kindly recommend the best value car hire in the above region?

A wonderful member of this fraternity really came up trumps for us in Valencia, Spain so I'm hopeful that someone has recommendations for the Carcassone area.

Kind regards to all.

knightstyle

Hi, If you need it at the airport you are stuck, try Holiday Autos on line. If not try supermarkets, we have used SuperU and HyperU excellent rates and very easy, no pressure to buy extras. I think other supermarkets do car hire as well, Leclerc for example. Good luck.

squibbs25

When we went to Charente in June, i booked with Hertz via the Ryanair website as it was the cheapest at the time. Managed to save about £30 ish pound.

Hth,

Squibbs

peterbaker

Yes Hertz via Ryanair website is always worth checking - but we found France car-hire is more expensive than Spain this Summer so one of our group hired a people carrier in Girona and brought it up to Carcassonne and until they arrived we hired a Punto from Hertz Carcassonne for £86 for 4 days on an advance booking promotion. The "day before" Hertz Ryanair price was nearly £50 more (I checked it before I left!).

Do watch out for the hidden cost of full insurance however. It is quite scandalous that they ALL get away with promoting the "ALL IN" price and then slap you with a 600(?) Euro Excess on even a small car like a Punto. More on larger cars and more if it gets nicked To get around it you must buy Super Collision Damage Waiver and Super Theft cover not just CDW and that would have been and extra 10 Euros a day on mine. I skipped it on the Punto and gambled because I carry a £250 excess on my own car at home and I knew I wasn't going anywhere where it was remotely likely to get damaged or nicked.

The people carrier at Girona was with a Car Jet company www.carjet.com (many people haven't heard of them but they are a recent phenomenum borne out of a myriad of takeovers of other well known names it seems - maybe even Holiday Autos is part of Car Jet??). The daily extra insurance charge on that was capped at 50 Euros I think so was worth taking.

I read knightstyle's suggestion about using Leclerc supermarket for car hire with interest ... I didn't know they did car hire but they are certainly in and around Carcassonne so worth checking out. A taxi from Carcassonne to middle of town is about 13 Euros - a taxi to nearest Leclerc might be even cheaper!

PS If you do skip the extra insurance and chance the excess do make sure all existing damage inside and outside the car has been carefully noted on your agreement before you start to drive. My Punto was fine to drive but it had half a dozen small but obvious damage items not noted when I found it in the car park. I walked back (50 metres to the office at little Carcassonne :rotfl:and got it noted on both copies - no problem.

PPS If you do fly Ryanair and use Hertz at CCF or anywhere else I guess then here's a tip ... organise your family to collect the bags from reclaim while you hurry out to the Hertz office across the road before the queue builds!

eevie

We just hired at Carcassonne Airport through Holidayautos, the rental company was Europcar. I spent ages searching before we went and even found 3 Holidayautos websites all offering the same car at different prices; £450, £403,£382 for a renault scenic. The £382 was the cheapest I had found after searching all of the major suplliers and brokers, I think I found one broker that was cheaper but after looking at information on forums decided they were best avoided. Holidayautos seems to have a very good reputation. We also chose to use the insurance4carhire to cover the car as this appeared to cover everything, whereas the extra insurance offered by holidayautos does not.

My Punto was fine to drive but it had half a dozen small but obvious damage items not noted when I found it in the car park. I walked back (50 metres to the office at little Carcassonne :rotfl:and got it noted on both copies - no problem.

we also had to return to the office and get the scratches noted.

That's interesting about the supermarkets I didn't realsise they did car hire, shall look that up next time.

Faston

you guys really are the BEST. Many thanks to all.