Car Rental While Traveling

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Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Kurt » Thu May 12, 2022 4:24 pm

Europe = Easy as Fucking Your Own Hand
USA = What the fuckity fuck?

Last time I went to France I rented a Fiat Panda, Booked it on the site for 360 Eur for 6 days. Insurance included. Baby Car seat included (if needed) Road Side assistance included. Tax included in the price. Full tank of fuel.
I arrived to pick it up and I paid exactly 360 Eur and got exactly the car I reserved. I had to return it with a full tank so the only added cost was the fuel I bought. ..which was expensive.

This has happened to me many times in Europe.

In the US I just visited an Avis site to rent a car for an upcoming trip. They don't even tell you the kind of car you are getting, just an approximation. "Luxury is "Chrysler 300 or similar" which is hilarious. The price for 6 days was given as $430. Since this is lawsuit happy-land I paid the extra $25 per day for "walk away" insurance. And then the charges came ...$9 per day for "storage fee" for a car I am driving. tons of weird little fees + taxes and it jacks up to about $780 in no time at all.

What is funny is they even had a "Mystery Vehicle" option for $1200 for the same amount of time. So you do not even know what car you are renting ever, just the "type" but the Mystery Vehicle option you do not even know. What a weird fucking thing.

Then if you rent from Hertz you have a chance of just getting arrested for grand theft auto even if you returned the car. ...hell, apparently people have been arrested for stealing Hertz cars even if they have never rented from them. Hertz cannot keep track of their own inventory. (or someone employed by them is just selling cars and calling the cops on randos)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/20 ... 515487002/

Anyway, if you travel in the US, use any non Hertz company but they will still suck, but at least you will stay out of jail.

In Europe you pay a bit extra for an automatic (ha! if you cannot drive a manual anyway) but that is it. When I was in Iceland this nice American couple had to shame walk back to the rental desk and confess they did not know how to drive a stick, since by default all basic vehicles are manual. (I did not rent a car in Iceland though)
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby snaark » Thu May 12, 2022 6:08 pm

Honestly I don't think European car rental companies are any different from American car rental companies. They're all cunts.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Kurt » Thu May 12, 2022 7:37 pm

snaark wrote:Honestly I don't think European car rental companies are any different from American car rental companies. They're all cunts.


I found Europe to be straightforward. Reserve Fiat Panda = Get Fiat Panda.

When did you last rent a car in the US? I think the last easy time I had was back in November of 2001 when I rented a Geo Metro (Awesome car btw) but after that it has been "I know you reserved a car but we do not have any cars" "Why did I make a reservation at all?" "So if we did have cars we could have rented you one"

That sort of thing.

If we were both rich we could do one of those rich guy bets where we swap wives you travel to USA to rent a car from 5 different locations and I travel to Europe and do the same and whomever wants to kill themselves at the thought of renting another car would lose the bet.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby seektravelinfo » Fri May 13, 2022 12:17 am

When the pandemic kicked in I got a night job at the Amazon warehouse. Kid that I worked with had been renting cars from Enterprise for around $450 mo …. which would be about the same as a car payment & insurance, but he could just turn in the car end of month and rent a different car for the following month.

But then car rental prices went off the hook, and I’d imagine that his monthly rental fee increased dramatically.

My daughter told me that people working in the illegal drug trades ….. okay, drug dealers …rent cars now instead of driving fancy Escalades.
Makes sense. She also told me it’s a thing for storage units to be used by drug dealers to hold their inventory.

Last year I rented a small storage unit in my neighborhood. I asked the girl in the office if she knew about the corpse that had been stored there around 20 yrs. ago. Two men who were brothers lived with their mother and she died at home of natural causes. They rented a storage unit for her body so that they could continue cashing her social security checks. Don’t remember what time of year it was, but if it was winter it would have been like putting mother in a deep-freeze. Those units aren’t heated.

The girl didn’t know about that history tidbit of U-Store-It, but that there had been a bust there recently that involved two units …. one containing cash one containing drugs. Drug dealer used one for his inventory and I guess the other one was a bank.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby ReptilianKittenEater » Fri May 13, 2022 2:41 am

A Geo Metro - that is very - um - urban.

Ireland is pretty expensive for renting cars, though the service is pretty good. I messed up a mag a bit on a curb (it is because they drive on the wrong side of the road) and they let it go when I returned.

That may be the tiny (and it is a very tiny) glimmer about a felcher like Putin. If he took over Europe he just might make the Brits and the Irish drive on the right side of the road.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby ROB » Fri May 13, 2022 8:37 am

Turkey was so easy I thought I was being scammed.

Nope. Just piss easy and piss cheap.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Kurt » Sat May 14, 2022 4:02 pm

My wife has credit cards. I have bank debit cards. So we pay by debit when traveling unless we cannot. Then we use her credit cards.

So we rock up to the rental desk and they dont take debit. So wife offers to pay ....newp. She does not have a drivers license so they cannot take payment.
Ok they can use a debit card if i pass a credit check.
I got 13k in that account and have only "defaulted" on a medical bill of 200.00 that I didnt pay because I was double billed for it.
So, failed the credit check so we got out our company card for my wifes design biz.
Accepted in my wifes name because it was a corporate card.
Not sure what this logic is but it sucks.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Devlin » Tue May 17, 2022 4:16 am

seektravelinfo wrote:
My daughter told me that people working in the illegal drug trades ….. okay, drug dealers …rent cars now instead of driving fancy Escalades.
Makes sense. She also told me it’s a thing for storage units to be used by drug dealers to hold their inventory.



A good number of drug movers will use rental cars for several reasons, the old, "someone must have left that in here" excuse holds up well when some dope or a gun is found under a seat.

For the most part they don't stand out, they are maintained, and they don't get "known" to the cops working the area.

If I was doing dirty deeds, I would be using a rental or a few of them.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Michael » Wed May 18, 2022 3:18 pm

No problems in Europe...Montenegro required a hard insurance waiver which the insurance company faxed, no problem. In Barcelona, they were out of the little economy models we paid for, so they asked us if it would be a problem if we'd take a bigger Mercedes with about 600 kilometers on the odometer at no extra charge. Just a general observation, but the U.S. kind of sucks when it comes to being tourist friendly.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby seektravelinfo » Wed May 18, 2022 5:41 pm

Michael wrote:. Just a general observation, but the U.S. kind of sucks when it comes to being tourist friendly.



That is true. If you’re visiting the USA for an extended road trip the thing to do would be buy a reliable beater upon arrival and then sell it when you’re done traveling. It would be cheaper than a rental and with the price of used cars steadily increasing you may even turn a profit. Prices for used cars are off the charts now. I recently had my little Chevy serviced at the dealership it was purchased from. The technician told me that the dealers were making as much in one month selling used cars as they earned the previous year selling new cars.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Kurt » Thu May 19, 2022 1:01 pm

Michael wrote: Just a general observation, but the U.S. kind of sucks when it comes to being tourist friendly.


Yep. Even in places that rely on it, like "Broadway" in NYC is a big fan of talking really loud to make up with someone struggling to order some food because they could not quite remember the words from their English Phrasebook.

"I harve bagel preez"
"WHAT KIND OF CREAM CHEESE DO YOU WANT WITH THAT"
"????"
"CREAM CHEESE. CREAM CHEESE. CREEEEEEAM CHEEEEEEEEEESE"
"yes"
"DO YOU WANT THAT TOASTED?"
???
"TOASTED. TOASTED. TOASTED. TOASTED. TOASTED. YOU WANT TOASTED YES OR NO?"

I mean, just give them the fucking bagel however most people want it. No one comes to NYC to have to choose options. Actually that is not a bad thing for citizens to adopt as well, Order a latte in Italy and it will arrive in less than 1 minute. Order one in the US and it is like waiting for someone to give birth. ...The reason? In Italy they have like 3 or 4 choices only so everything is well done and fast. The US we always have the option of infinite possibilities even though most of us only order from the 4.

Anyway, I think Cawthorn is gonna OD.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Devlin » Thu May 19, 2022 2:08 pm

Kurt wrote:
Michael wrote: Just a general observation, but the U.S. kind of sucks when it comes to being tourist friendly.


Yep. Even in places that rely on it, like "Broadway" in NYC is a big fan of talking really loud to make up with someone struggling to order some food because they could not quite remember the words from their English Phrasebook.

"I harve bagel preez"
"WHAT KIND OF CREAM CHEESE DO YOU WANT WITH THAT"
"????"
"CREAM CHEESE. CREAM CHEESE. CREEEEEEAM CHEEEEEEEEEESE"
"yes"
"DO YOU WANT THAT TOASTED?"
???
"TOASTED. TOASTED. TOASTED. TOASTED. TOASTED. YOU WANT TOASTED YES OR NO?"

I mean, just give them the fucking bagel however most people want it. No one comes to NYC to have to choose options. Actually that is not a bad thing for citizens to adopt as well, Order a latte in Italy and it will arrive in less than 1 minute. Order one in the US and it is like waiting for someone to give birth. ...The reason? In Italy they have like 3 or 4 choices only so everything is well done and fast. The US we always have the option of infinite possibilities even though most of us only order from the 4.

Anyway, I think Cawthorn is gonna OD.


I have said that about Dunkin Donuts, when it was just coffee and donuts, that were made in the store things were fast. Now they just suck.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby rickshaw92 » Thu May 19, 2022 2:51 pm

I have said that about Dunkin Donuts, when it was just coffee and donuts, that were made in the store things were fast. Now they just suck.



Just like Tim's up in Canada.
Im reallly fuclimg pissed but fespite that I can still hit a tarfet at 1000m plus. mayVRVe bnot tonight but it qint beyond the wit if man. Nowhammy.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby seektravelinfo » Thu May 19, 2022 4:02 pm

rickshaw92 wrote:
I have said that about Dunkin Donuts, when it was just coffee and donuts, that were made in the store things were fast. Now they just suck.



Just like Tim's up in Canada.


Ha. I spit on Dunkin Donuts. They’re not even real doughnuts. They get them frozen from a warehouse. I’m a freak for a good doughnut, the kind you get from the little mom/pop outfits that sell out by 2:00 p.m. Those places are increasingly rare.
Krispy Kreme is a reasonable facsimile. At least they make them there and it’s cool to watch their conveyer machine pour the glaze onto them. Eat 3 or 4 of those and wait for the stomachache.
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Re: Car Rental While Traveling

Postby Devlin » Thu May 19, 2022 4:10 pm

Yep, love the mom and pops.

Now this is a small Florida chain but it is unreal.

https://jupiterdonuts.com/

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