If you are planning to hire a car whilst abroad in Europe, you need to remember more than just which side of the road to drive on. There are also a plethora of charges for using certain roads or entering certain areas – including in the UK.

Tolls

Tolls, low-emission zones, congestion charges and other such systems are springing up all over Europe (including the UK & Ireland) with ever-increasing frequency.

Firstly, many European countries operate some kind of charging system on their motorways. France’s superb tolled Autoroutes (the best motorways in Europe, in my experience) are the best known, but Switzerland and Austria require you to buy a permit to use their motorways and Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Italy also have some tolled motorway routes.

There are other countries with motorway charging in place, too, so check before you go – one of the best resources is the AA’s website – click here for its guide to European tolls.

Low-Emission & Congestion Charging Zones

The other popular trend in recent years has been the introduciton of congestion charging and low emission zones, with the twin goals of reducing congestion and improving air quality.

These zones are naturally in urban areas, usually around big cities. However, you may be surprised just how many countries have them.

Apart from the UK’s dearly beloved London Congestion Charge, here are just a few other countries that have similar (but different) schemes in operation:

• Germany
• Netherlands (Holland)
• Norway
• Denmark
• Sweden
• Italy

I am not even going to attempt to provide a comprehensive guide to these zones here, as the scope of the schemes is constantly changing. However, there is an excellent, publicly-funded site that I would recommend you check before you are due to drive abroad, especially if your route will take you near any cities:

• Low Emission Zones in Europe

As always, ignorance is no excuse and you can expect to be penalised if you break any of the rules – just as you would be in London.

If you’re renting a car abroad, then check with the rental agency office for the latest local information. You will probably be required to make any congestion charge payments yourself but may find that your first day is included – especially if you hire a car within a low emission zone.

For example, with Avis, you first day’s congestion charge is included if you rent a car within the London Congestion Charge zone. Subsequent days are your responsibility, however.

If it all sounds a bit intimidating, don’t be put off. A small amount of preparation goes a long way and most of these systems are not too difficult to navigate, even if you don’t speak the language. Just remember – be prepared and don’t be afraid to ask. With modern number plate recognition cameras as good as they are, sticking your head in the sand and hoping to get away with it isn’t a wise approach.

Despite the credit crunch, Alpine ski resorts are hoping for a bumper year this year following October’s unusually early snowfall.

Ski resorts in areas such as Switzerland, Italy, Austria and France have opened early to take advantage of the conditions and even estate agents in the area are reporting an upturn in enquiries from November onwards – such is the addicitve nature of skiing.

Recent years have seen the occasional shortage of snow in some resorts – this doesn’t look likely this year but what may be possible is a shortage of cheap hire cars.

If you are planning a skiing trip this winter and will need to hire a car, it may pay you to book early and avoid the inflated rates that might be on offer if you leave it to the last minute. Our booking system searches through more than 450 suppliers in 134 countries and provides some of the most competitive quotes available.

To get an instant ski car rental quote, click here.

When booking a hire car for collection at an airport, you will often be required to provide your flight number. Make sure you provide it, or it could cost you dearly – as this story in the Birmingham Mail illustrates.

In this case, the customer’s flight was delayed, resulting in the car hire company’s airport office being closed for the night when she arrived. She then had to take a taxi to her hotel and another taxi to return to the airport the following day and collect her hire car – hardly a dream start to a holiday.

However, this whole situation could have been avoided had the customer provided her flight number. The hire car was booked through Holiday Autos, whose spokesman told the Birmingham Mail that “Had the flight details been added, the car rental desk would have waited for the customers’ arrival.”

As no flight details had been provided (it’s optional, not compulsory), Holiday Autos had simply found a the cheapest supplier that was open at the times specified by the customer.

Although it must have been a frustrating experience, you can’t really criticse Holiday Autos – they ask for flight details and just take your times on trust if you don’t provide them. Their whole business model is based on providing the cheapest quote – and customers would soon complain if they were paying extra for 24-hour availability when they hadn’t asked for it.

The lesson here is always provide your flight details when booking airport car hire – it really does pay.

Hiring a car abroad is pretty much the same as doing it in when you’re at home. Except it isn’t quite.

Different language.

(Slightly) Different rules of the road.

Vehicles with the steering wheel on the opposite side to normal.

And so on…

Consumer organisation Which? have recognised that there can be a few pitfalls when hiring a car abroad and published this useful guide to hiring a car abroad.

While this is a sensible and helpful guide, I would point out that you shouldn’t exaggerate the potential problems. Most of them apply when you are at home, too and it really is just a case of being careful and checking everything that needs checking. The only things that can make it harder abroad are language difficulties and unfamiliar geographic surroundings.

Don’t let the fear of problems put you off renting, however. Like so many things, the vast majority of people do it without any problems whatsoever, but you only hear about the tiny minority of people who did have problems.

How’s this for a frustrating scenario?

You arrive at a foreign airport and head to the car rental counter to pick up your pre-booked car.

The rental company staff tell you they have run out of cars and they won’t be able to help you. Sorry.

Blood pressure rising, you chase round all of the other car rental companies in the airport and eventually manage to rent a car – although you are now running several hours late and having to pay more than you budgeted…

If you aren’t sure how you would handle this situation, check out this article on DallasNews.com. It turns out that most large companies’ standard operating procedure is to help you find another car – even if it has to be hired on your behalf from a competitor.

Don’t take a refusal from the counter staff – ask to see a manager and politely but firmly request that they honour your reservation and arrange a car for you.

In a way, I can sympathise with car hire companies who overbook their cars – given how many customer no-shows they get, they don’t really have much choice. The important thing is how they handle it when things don’t go to plan.

As always, however, you will be in a stronger position if you understand how the system works, which I hope I have helped you to do.

Hire companies all over the world group their hire cars into fairly standard groups – such as ‘Intermediate’ and ‘Full Size’. The problem is that these don’t have the same meaning in different countries – most notably there are differences between the UK & Europe, Australia and the USA & Canada.

At CarHirePlace.com, we understand this difficulty and have already published a ‘What Size Car Guide‘ to help you understand the car rental companies’ descriptions of size and luggage capacity.

However, you can’t have too much good information, and The Car Hire Insider (an Australian website) has just published an even better guide focusing on Australian car hire sizes but including examples of equivalent cars in the UK and the USA.

They’ve even indicated which cars will fit a fifth person but “will be more comfortable without” – an experience most people who’ve travelled in the back seats of European-size cars will be familiar with.

You can check out the Car Hire Insider’s guide to Australian Rental Car Models here – it’s well worth a read if you aren’t sure how car sizes are described in different countries.

Need a quote for car hire in Australia? Click here

Many people don’t look any further than price when comparing car rental quotes on a website such as CarHirePlace.com.

That can be a big mistake.

Prices between competitive quotes often only differ by a few pounds. Everyone likes a good deal, but let’s be honest; spending an extra fiver on several day’s car rental won’t make much difference to most people.

What will make a difference is being unable to rent a car. For example, are you:

Under 25?

Over 70?

Newly qualified?

All of these factors can cause some rental companies to refuse to rent to you or to charge you costly extra fees, such as the legendary ‘young driver surcharge’.

This is where car hire comparison sites really come into their own. Not only can you compare price and availability – you can also compare minimum and maximum rental ages, driving licence requirements, insurance excess amounts and much more.

For example, some major companies only require you to have held a full licence for 1 year and be over 21 years of age. Others require you to have held a full drivers license for three years and be over 25 years of age.

Pretty big difference, isn’t it?

Compare Car Hire Rental Conditions

While some car hire companies like to bury their terms and conditions away, we like to make everything 100% clear at the quote stage.

To see individual rental conditions for each vehicle in your CarHirePlace.com quote results, all you have to do is click on the Rental Conditions above the price for each car:

A popup window will then appear with a comprehensive list of terms and conditions – to see more detail, just click on the each heading:

I hope this has been useful. It’s very important to look further than the headline price when comparing car hire and hopefully this post will have shown you how easy it is to access all the information you need to consider when hiring a car.