Car hire dilemma from Geneva

A snowHead

January 2020, 8 days from Geneva airport. Who would you go for?

1. Reputable car hire company from the Swiss side for about £230
2. Hire with Keddy (Europcar budget brand) from the French side (no winter tyres or chains) for £85.
3. Do nothing and wait for a better price for option 1.

Usually I'd avoid the French side for obvious reasons but I've been waiting to bite for a few months and that's a *huge* price difference. Last year we paid £140 from the Swiss side including winter tyres & chains, but haven't seen anything close to that this year.

Resort is Abondance, so no high access roads and also no need to use the Swiss motorway. However we will be driving to different resorts around the Chablais during the week.

A snowHead

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

1..... Esp if your driving around different resorts around the Chablais.

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@denfinella, 1.
Doesn’t look a bad price to me.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Can you book 1. with a free cancellation then look again after Oct 31 ? Price looks like what i'd expect to pay

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£85 is a suspiciously low price

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

After all it is free

The reviews for Keddy on trustpilot don't look very favourable

Winter tyres will be compulsory in the French Alps next season , new law , so I suspect the car will have them on so you will be charged or you might be lucky and not or the car won’t have them on but you won't be able to drive to your ski stations .

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I had this choice a couple of years ago on a last minute long weekend to Avoriaz. Tons of snow was forecast but there was such a difference in price, my head was turned! I hired from the French side but bought a set of snow socks from eBay for a tenner before I went. It chucked down with snow while we were there so we had to dig the car out of the Prodains car park on the final morning and put the socks on (which was more tricky than anticipated as they kept firing off as the tyres spun on the ice - we jacked the car up in the end!). There was snow on the road until half way down to the lake and they worked brilliantly. A bit of a palaver but saved a few quid. Not sure if the rule change would allow it now.

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You know it makes sense.

My question is 'How much is the whole holiday costing? Is the risks consequent to not having winter tyres or chains worth the £145 saving?. The risks being, among others

The snow socks you take over don't fit.
Your flight's delayed and no local sock/chain outlets are open.
You actually need winter tyres.
You actually need snow chains.
The car you're given can't actually take snow chains anyway.
The Gendarmarie say that without winter tyres you can't progress.
As well as the usual 'is it cheap because it's cheap, or because I actually have to trek miles to/from an off-site compound?'

Otherwise you'll just go on seeing the one name:

@denfinella, It is a road trip. Being able to just get in the car and set off with winter tyres makes planning a lot easier than if you have to factor in time to fit and remove chains a few times.

A snowHead

@LaForet, All valid points except maybe the car location thing. I hired a car from Geneva french side, admittedly a couple of years ago, that was from a "europcar cheapie division". Cannot remember which one but it was the same desk as europcar and the car was with all the others in the multistorey that you walk to from the desks.
£85 sounds suspiciously cheap for a Geneva airport hire anyway though, whoever it's with.

A snowHead

6 months until January, they won't run out of cars, don't worry. On October you can call to cheap company and ask about tires in January, will they be putting winter tires on their fleet, or equip cars with socks/chains to make cars legal on the road. I remember last year on November there was all fleet available in GVA airport for middle of January, and prices +- same as summer.

Well, the person's real but it's just a made up name, see?

Thanks all, lots of good points. I think you're probably right that option 1 is the most sensible, even if it seems a lot of money to me. I'm guessing £140 from the Swiss side was just an unusually good deal last year and we're unlikely to get close to it again?

To answer some of your specific comments (I realise I'm playing devil's advocate with some of them!)...

@@247snowman, yes, think this is what swings it for me.

@BergenBergen, re. free cancellation: possibly - will investigate. Re. trustpilot - yes, though reviews are pretty bad for almost all the hire companies on there!

@pam w, @skitow, for Geneva / Switzerland, yes it is suspiciously cheap. However it is comparable to past trips from Italian airports, which have included snow chains (but not winter tyres). And it's through Autoeurope, and Keddy aren't a completely unknown brand. I've never hired from the French side of Geneva before so I don't know how much it normally costs.

@Rob Mackley, good point - I'd forgotten about the new law coming in. As well as the Alps, will it apply to the area that the (French side of the) airport is in? If so, surely they couldn't sell me a car which is illegal to drive? So they'd be required to provide the winter tyres by law?

@Klamm Franzer, sounds like you were a bit lucky. I don't think I'd make the same decision if "tons of snow" was forecast Toofy Grin

of course, it's always a possibility... though Abondance is only at about 950 metres.

@Themasterpiece, you're probably right, though personally we've only had them fitted once (from Geneva last year) - on other occasions, we've been hiring from Italy with summer tyres and chains (which we've never used).

@LaForet, the whole holiday will likely be costing about £1500, including everything (food, travel to airport in UK, etc.). So the difference of ~£150 does add ~10% to the total holiday cost. There's certainly a risk, but is it worth paying that much more for? Some of your specific risks don't apply however: 1. we'd buy chains in France. 2. our flight arrives about 10am, so it's extremely unlikely to be delayed so much that we can't buy chains locally. 3. fair enough! 4. see no. 1. 5. is this really likely on a small hire car? 6. probably fair enough given the new laws, but Abondance is particularly low, and so are the access roads 7. I suspect not, because Keddy cars are from the same fleet as Europcar.

@rjs, @kosmoz, fair points.

Just to confirm, if we were heading to somewhere like Val Thorens or the difference in cost was less then it'd be a no brainer. But Abondance is unusually low, and has unusually low access roads - the approach is all along a valley bottom. How common is heavy, lying snow on roads below 900 metres in the Chablais? Assuming I can buy chains locally, we're really comparing ~£115 for a car with summer tyres and chains, or £230 for a car with winter tyres (and probably chains).

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@denfinella, You are unlikely to face snowy roads (but can never be sure) but winter tyres are not just about driving in snow - they offer better safety performance (stopping, grip) when driving cold winter conditions when compared to summer tyres. The valleys in the Chablais often experience temperature inversions and get very cold and icey and the roads to the smaller resorts such as Bernex are narrow and twisty. c. £115 does not seem to be that much of a difference when all things are considered including safety and dealing with a better car rental company. Renting on the Swiss side also gives you the option to drive to Val d'Abordance via the Swiss motorway which can be quickly and more relaxing.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

You could well be charged a "winterisation" fee on top of what you've been quoted. I bet that price won't hold.

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This was the road between Bernex and Abondance end of Jan 2019. The roads do get ploughed quite quickly but i believe they are using less salt/grit than they used to so they are never slush free. Also I think the bigger problem is getting the car out of the carpark and having to use chains just to do that as they get ploughed when the farmer gets around to it. As you are planning a road trip you will appreciate the snow tyres as you can just get up and go.

Then you can post your own questions or snow reports...

Just to be constructive - @denfinella have you access to your employer's travel company for personal rentals? Or any sort of professional association discount? I worked for a mulitnational previously, and discovered our corporate travel agents were perfectly happy to make private bookings and could get really great rates (you need to be up-front that it's a personal booking because of cover, but it was still cheaper than any internet rate I could find). I also get 20% off Hertz as an IoD member, and I know that quite a few professional associations have similar arrangements.

The off-site thing is more generic: a friend of mine last year got what looked like a great rate and then on return, found that it involved returning his car to Ferney Voltaire, although he'd picked it up at GVA French side. He's been hiring from GVA for years and just assumed that if you specify Cointrin pick-up then it'll also be the same return location. So always worth double-checking the fine print. Not such a big deal if you know, but he almost missed his 'plane thanks to the extra time to drive there and walk (yes, no shuttle) back.

Re. small cars: This is just on the basis of what Hertz did for a couple of years and then gave up on - which is to have small Smart-class cars with summer tyres on for purely local driving. They looked like a real bargain, because they were not intended to be taken up into the mountains. I hired one once and when I asked for chains they basically said that the car wasn't intended for anything more than local journeys around the city and lakeside, and so I upgraded. So, just be careful this isn't the case.

After all it is free

I've done option 2. Completely backfired as there was snow around and I wanted a car that was going to drive properly. The french one was crap for £80 so I upgraded and paid an additional £200. Summary...do option 1.

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Right, Swiss side and winter tyres it is! Thanks all.

Help!!

Car hire dilemma from Geneva

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