Renting a Car in France

Automatic cars are quite rare in France and not only are more expensive to rent, but are not readily available. So if you plan to drive, be sure to make reservations well ahead of time, especially if you are needing automatic transmission. Reservations can easily be done on websites such as Auto Europe or the individual sites of rental companies like Avis, Budget, etc.

Before my arrival in France, I went to my local AAA office to apply for an international driver’s license. The process was simple and included a small fee. No one actually asked to see it when I was in France. But I thought that it would be a good thing to have with me just in case I were to be pulled over by the police or was asked to see it for any reason.

With regard to insurance coverage, which you will definitely need, keep in mind that your U.S. car insurance will not cover your losses overseas. However, most credit card companies such as AMEX, Citi MasterCard, and Capital One offer coverage for auto rental in other countries ,as a travel benefit with your card. You just have to use that card when paying for the rental and there’s no extra charges for insurance. Be sure to call and verify that coverage is available for the destination that you’ll be driving in. As example, I found out that AMEX travel insurance has exclusionary clauses where car rentals in Italy, Ireland and a few other places are not available. So I just contacted the next company, which happened to be Capital One and they do cover Italy. This way, you can avoid the extra high fees by the car rental company.