Car hire - Pay in Euro or Pounds

iosullivan · 20 July 2022 at 4:39PM

A question - I need to rent a car for my upcoming Ireland trip in August. Even booking this far in advance is costing lots of money. Can I go on to the rental's .com site and book via Euros. example Europcar.com,, select English language but where do I live - put Ireland - enter details of when etc. need hire car. The cost of the hire car this way is over £350.00 cheaper (when you do the exchange rate) Am I allowed to do this or will i have problems when I arrive to collect?

Sandtree · 20 July 2022 at 4:47PM

Most card payments use AVS and so when you put a bogus address in that will be checked against the registered address for your card and the payment declined when it doesn't match.

iosullivan · 20 July 2022 at 4:54PM

Understand that, but when I have gone through payment section on Europcar.com it is not asking me for address - just asking for name/DOB/Phone no/Email and then my card details plus flight details - says confirm and pay

comeandgo · 20 July 2022 at 4:57PM

I always use the country I’m going to’s web site, I use that for hotel bookings, flights, car hire anything. Example, i have flights booked with Air New Zealand so use the co.nz web pages and I’ve never had any problems using their local currency, even in Egypt when flying with the Egyptian air companies but I’ve never seen such a large currency difference. Are your hire costs in the many thousands to get a £350 exchange difference?

iosullivan · 20 July 2022 at 5:00PM

UK site is currently at just over £1050 for 6 days hire - the other day when I looked was as low as £700 and now rocketed. Going via .com and booking in euro's means I save over £350 for same rental

Sandtree · 20 July 2022 at 5:05PM

comeandgo said:

I always use the country I’m going to’s web site, I use that for hotel bookings, flights, car hire anything. Example, i have flights booked with Air New Zealand so use the co.nz web pages and I’ve never had any problems using their local currency, even in Egypt when flying with the Egyptian air companies but I’ve never seen such a large currency difference. Are your hire costs in the many thousands to get a £350 exchange difference?

Its not just the top level domain though in this case, there is an explicit question of where do you live irrespective of if you go to .ie, .uk, .it etc

I personally suspect it wont make any difference assuming you pre-pay online but its not my monies at risk

comeandgo · 20 July 2022 at 5:07PM

iosullivan said:

UK site is currently at just over £1050 for 6 days hire - the other day when I looked was as low as £700 and now rocketed. Going via .com and booking in euro's means I save over £350 for same rental

So it’s down to pricing difference not just exchange rate. Does the hire company not have an Irish domain as well as a dot com? I also find things are a lot cheaper using the other country’s web pages which is why I do it. Do you have a credit card that does not charge exchange fees? That will reduce costs too.

iosullivan · 20 July 2022 at 9:23PM

comeandgo said:

iosullivan said:

UK site is currently at just over £1050 for 6 days hire - the other day when I looked was as low as £700 and now rocketed. Going via .com and booking in euro's means I save over £350 for same rental

So it’s down to pricing difference not just exchange rate. Does the hire company not have an Irish domain as well as a dot com? I also find things are a lot cheaper using the other country’s web pages which is why I do it. Do you have a credit card that does not charge exchange fees? That will reduce costs too.

Yes Europcar has an Irish website and put the costs in Euro and does an exchange rate. When compared to UK website makes the rental £300 cheaper. Asked for my home details etc and can pay up front so looks like I am better doing it this way

ellenvan · 20 July 2022 at 9:34PM

Also some car hire companies let you cancel free of charge up to a few days before car hire commences. Worth a look at last minute prices, they sometimes reduce if they have lots of cars left to rent.