car rental - Nice to Rome

We were hoping to rent a car (preferably a MiniCooper) and drive from Nice to Rome. We will be leaving the car in Rome once we arrived. Does anyone recommend some car rental places? Also, what other fees/services/insurance should we look out for? It is better to book online before we go or book at the counter?

Thanks.

Ladythump

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Hi Ladythump!

Car hire is very tricky.

For starters you book a %26#39;category%26#39; of car, not a specific car - for example: Mini Cooper or similar.

Then, as you are wanting to do a one-way cross-border rental, there will be a hefty premium to leave it in a different country.

Turning up at a car-hire company%26#39;s counter could be quite painful if it%26#39;s the summer, as you could be waiting an hour just to get served!! Multiply that by the number of companies you%26#39;ll have to visit just to find a specific car...and even then, you%26#39;ve no guarantees ANY will have the car you are after!!

As for insurances, I personally always get the full cover including CDW so that there%26#39;s no worries if someone hits your car. Small price, big potential savings is the way I see it.

Any particular reason you are after a MiniCooper? - (which aren%26#39;t really available or seen in any great number in the south of France as they aren%26#39;t a valuable fleet car for hire car companies)

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Hmmm... thanks for the information. Not being car specific, who would you recommend renting a car from? We just thought a minicooper would be fun, but any car will do.

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No probs,

Paste the following link into your browser, and it%26#39;ll check the rates from loads of different suppliers in one go, hopefully saving time and money:

https:/…

Enjoy!

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Beware extra charges on french rental cars crossing into Italy. We found the cost prohibitive to rent a car in france and then drive into Italy. What I recall is that we would have had to pay an additional insurance charge not only for our time in Italy, but for the whole car rental... which seemed a bit extreme!

We have had good luck with renting from SIXT car rentals in the south of france... check out www.e-sixt.com. It seems best to book on-line before you arrive, at least that was our experience and confirmed by several other posters.

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you%26#39;ll pay between 300-600USD one way drop fee in addition to the daily rate.

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hmmm.... yea. Seems non of those websites give you the option to return in Italy. Any other suggestions??? Willing to pay the surcharge I guess. Is it cheaper to get to Rome from Nice via plane???

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You can fly with BluExpress from Nice to Rome - quicker and usually cheaper than the surcharge for a one-way drop-off:

blu-express.com/cgi-bin/airkiosk/I7/181002i…

Enjoy!

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