JW Seattle

I have a delivery date of 10/5 for my RS5. Friends want to accompany, so need another car! Any advise on rental companies? Planning on going south to Croatia, ferry to Italy, and drop off in Amsterdam. Crazy??

alatsacto

Many things I considered as I am finalizing my plans for my SQ5 with a delivery date for Monday 10/7. I too, will have others joining us for this trip, so I also needed to find an additional car for them. For me, the best rates I found were on "www.autoeurope.com", which is like a 3rd-party rental company. Another nice tip is if you have American Express, sign up for their "Car Rental Insurance Program", which is free to sign up. For any rental car, you are FULLY COVERED by AMEX for a flat fee of $18-30 for the entire duration of the rental. That definitely beats any Collision Damage Waiver the rental car company will try to charge at $10-50 per day. In the end, with AutoEurope's rates, I ended up renting a Mercedes Benz C class for a week from EuropCar right near Ingolstadt. Originally I was going to rent the car from Munich, but Audi was willing to transport all 6 of us with our luggage from Munich to the factory, so that saved me an additional day of car rental. After our delivery, I'll go pickup our additional rental car from EuropCar, which is supposed to be only about 10 minutes away. Audi was more than willing to assist with accommodating them for transportation to the factory and providing the additional guests with the factory tour.

You mentioned a delivery date of 10/5, which is a Saturday. Unless you got some special exception, Audi doesn't do deliveries on weekends. Originally I was trying to take delivery on my SQ5 on Friday 10/4, knowing Thursday 10/3 is a German holiday, however they were already fully booked. They were willing to work with me and fit me in on 10/4, however the factory is closed for tours on that day basically making 10/4 a semi-holiday. I wanted the full tour, so we decided to take delivery on Monday 10/7 instead.

As far as your plans, the more the better. Weather permitting with my summer tires, we are going from Ingolstadt, Austria, up and down Stelvio Pass, Switzerland, Paris, Belgium, and ending in Amsterdam as well. But you may want to check with Audi, according to their insurance coverage, Croatia is not listed as an authorized country. I hope this helps. If you have any questions, let me know cuz I've been planning this for months. Good luck.

spacey

I have always had good luck with Auto Europe. It is a U.S. company that resells European rentals. So you book with Auto Europe but will pick up the car from Hertz, EuropeCar, Budget, whoever they book it with. It is always a major provider. I found they have good rates for rentals with $0 deductible insurance. The only catch is that you pay in full when you book, and they have cancellation restrictions. Check their website and compare with direct booking from Hertz, etc. Have fun...

JW Seattle

Thanks for all the advice! My dealership hasn't confirmed my delivery date, but looks like it won't be 10/5. Lack of insurance in Croatia would definitely be a concern. I wonder if private insurance would be an option, or maybe cost prohibitive.

Have fun on your trip!

spacey

My recollection from my last European car rental, Hertz-Italy via Auto Europe, did not allow the rental car to be put on a ferry. You should check first.

kgall

As alatsacto says, check with Audi about the insurance in Croatia.
Within the past month or two, Croatia has become a full member of the EU, IIRC. That's the sort of thing that might change the insurance situation in your favor. I hope you do get to go to Croatia and see Dubrovnik and the Dalmatian Coast.
Also Split and the Roman ruins there.

JW Seattle

I've been thinking the same thing about admission to EU. Hopefully insurance coverage has extended into the country, but may be a bit soon.

I've been reading a bit about the area, and it really seems worth the visit. Also banking on a little nicer weather going south that time of year.

Thanks all again for input.

alatsacto

Here's an interesting thing I came across yesterday. Whenever I search for rental cars, I usually look at 3rd party companies first and then compare them with the actual rental car companies. When looking at Auto Europe, I was always looking at the US version of that site and could not find the car I wanted. However the car was available directly on the rental car company's site (https://procar.is). However yesterday I accidentally stumbled across the UK (http://www.autoeurope.uk) and EURO (http://www.autoeurope.eu) version of Auto Europe. What was odd was the cars offered are not identical and the prices can vary, even though my destination and dates were the same. I had already booked my secondary rental car for the main portion of our trip from Ingolstadt -> Amsterdam, and luckily that price was comparable, however I was still looking for a rental car for our time in Iceland. Amazingly the van I was trying to rent was available on Auto Europe (UK, EURO, and other european versions of this site). I ended up calling the US version of Auto Europe to see if something was wrong, they confirmed the US site did not offer the vehicle and that there were no issues with me booking with the other versions of their site. In the end, I booked with the ".EU" site and saved over $200 on the rental as opposed to if I had booked directly through the rental car company (ProCar.IS). I hope this helps. Good luck.

JW Seattle

That is great info, Thanks! I have to nail down my delivery date to get this trip dialed in. I did a little preliminary check on autoeurope.com, and rentals were suprisingly reasonable. Cheaper than my rental in Sacramento last week!

Mitch F

My Dealer says insurance is provided for Croatia. I asked in November, 2013 for a planned April, 2014 pickup.