Car hire Switzerland

[Watchthis]

Heading over to Zurich at the tail end of the year and planning to rent a car. Looked at the usual comparison sites and for 4 days it's looking to be around £300 or so for a small hatchback sized family car picking up from and returning to the airport.

Anyone have any tips for finding good value rentals? I'll take the cdw enhanced cover I'm sure for total peace of mind

[SwissJonese]

We used Europcar, in the airport, really simple. However they hand over the car in the darkest covered multi-story car park. So get your phone light out and take a few photos. We missed a massive scratch on the front bumper, luckily I took photos when parked near a lake and they accepted it when we returned.

I ordered the cheapest auto compact car. They gave me a brand new Skoda Octavia VRS estate, lovely car for the twisty bits in the mountain. They rarely have cheap cars in Zurich.

[happytobealive]

One tip - rather than buying the rental company's additional insurance (CDW etc) you can buy your own additional cover separately before you travel.

I buy an annual policy which covers any hire care excess and it works out much cheaper.

[ozzuk]

If you hire at airport...make sure you return it to the right side of the airport! They make a lot of money transferring the car to the 'right' side from the French sector. My boss got stung for quite a bit as we didn't have time to do it ourselves.

[happytobealive]

That 'French side' problem applies to Geneva, not Zurich.

[JEA1K]

Watchthis said:

Heading over to Zurich at the tail end of the year and planning to rent a car. Looked at the usual comparison sites and for 4 days it's looking to be around £300 or so for a small hatchback sized family car picking up from and returning to the airport.

Anyone have any tips for finding good value rentals? I'll take the cdw enhanced cover I'm sure for total peace of mind

I usually book through autoeurope and get decent prices ... booking well ahead, unlike flights, never seems to be the cheaper option ... unfortunately Zurich is never cheap.

Get rid of the full cdw though as this is a rip off and will double the cost of the hire in total, get a policy with Questor (or similar) at about £40 a year and can be used for multiple trips.

[shirt]

ozzuk said:

If you hire at airport...make sure you return it to the right side of the airport! They make a lot of money transferring the car to the 'right' side from the French sector. My boss got stung for quite a bit as we didn't have time to do it ourselves.

If renting a car from Zurich and you take it back to France then yes I’d imagine there would be a sizeable charge

[Watchthis]

Some good info there folks, thank you

[//j17]

Slightly off topic but has anyone paid the extra charge for satnav in the last, what 10 years? Always amuses me it's still there as an option given most cars now have it (and not like they can switch it off) and even if missing most people now have phones with GPS.

[craigjm]

ozzuk said:

If you hire at airport...make sure you return it to the right side of the airport! They make a lot of money transferring the car to the 'right' side from the French sector. My boss got stung for quite a bit as we didn't have time to do it ourselves.

That would be a really wide airport for France to be on the other side of Zurich airport

OP i think its been mentioned but book the smallest automatic and you almost always will get an upgrade is a good way to go