car hire geneva airport...french side.Any help ?

shazziere

lookin to fly with easyjet to geneva in august and then have car hire.But it appears this airport has 2 sides ...french and swiss.....We want to drive to Evian so will need French side but most of the online sites only mention the swiss side.Does anyone have any more info on this...ieany online sites that are french side specific?Is it easy to walk from the swiss side to the french side....or is it in a completely different terminal?

yoghurt

Does anyone know the answer to the OP query as I would like to know too?

Many thanks

potfish

Assuming you are flying into Geneva from anywhere other than France, you will pass through Swiss immigration, collect your bags from the carousel and then pass through Swiss customs into Switzerland. It makes a lot of sense to book your car from the Swiss side, then. You'll get a Swiss registered car with a Swiss motorway permit ("vignette"), and there's absolutely no problem driving this into France, 49km and 1 hour according to Google Maps.

If you get a car from the French side you have to either take a navigation nightmare route avoiding passing through any part of Switzerland (double the time and distance), or you'll have to buy a Swiss motorway vignette for the car (because you'll inevitably end up on a motorway even if you don't mean to) - both of these are a lot more hassle than just getting a Swiss car.

poe.tuesday

we arrived in the French side and our car hire was on thw Swiss, we were laiden down with bags and had out new baby with us so were not calm or relaxed about the whole situation, we litterally walked about the airport going through barriers to get to the right side, it was a nightmare so I would suggest that you ensure that you arrive on the same side as your car hire if you can

yoghurt

Thank you

We are staying in Morzine, France, flying from Bristol to Geneva

It sounds like the easiest way is to hire a car on the Swiss side and drive over the border to France

Can anyone recommend a cheap carhire place on the Swiss side please?

Many thanks

MenstrieBen

We have usually used holiday autos to hire cars from geneva (look at the car hire from lastminute.com). from memory the last one we haD came from europcar but a lot cheaper than their own rates.

i'd go for getting the car from the swiss side as it saves a lot of hastle with getting to and from the airport and its really easy to jump on the motorway to get past geneva.

the only slight problem is that you will have swiss plates and stand out a more as a tourist so be carefull with what you leave in the car. we always take out as much as we can adn leave teh boot id out if it is empty so anyone can see there is nothing worth taking!

enjoy your trip :-)

yoghurt

Thank you:D

yoghurt

Ahhh-I am a bit confused as Browntrout wrote:

Geneva Airport has a French and a Swiss side to it.

Just make sure you hire the car from the French side and you'll be okay, the most difficult thing though is returning the car without travelling on Swiss roads by not following the road signs for the Airport (you have to pay a toll without swiss road tax on a french car). They'll give you a map and explain this, just make sure your not rushed on the return, refill the tank etc.

So is it best to book a car on the French side at Geneva airport if we are going to Morzine, France?

Thanks

Yoghurt
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=627833&highlight=morzine