Geneva Car Hire French side??

A snowHead

Looking at car hire end on Feb ..Swiss side £445 French side £165

Think i would have to go the french side

From what ive read
1) It probably wont have winter tyres or chains
2) Would add 30 mins to the journey via D844 or Pay for swiss vignette

Is there anything else im missing ??

3) if it happened to have a vignette sticker , I take we could just drive through Geneva to France

Any hints or tips welcome

Thanks Nick

A snowHead

It won't have winter tyres but you can rent chains - but need to check they actually fit the wheels on the car......

A Swiss vignette is only necessary on the motorway out to Bardonnex (the quickest way to the French ski resorts). If you don't have a sticker you can still drive through Geneva, though traffic can be heavy. Probably worth buying a vignette to save time and temper. There is no need to do the detour to remain in French territory.

That's an extraordinarily big difference in price - are you sure you got that right?

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Take the motorway to France if you want. Your chances of getting stopped for not having a vignette on the way out of Switzerland at Bardonnex are almost zero in my experience. French customs don't care and I don't think I've ever seen Swiss customs on the side leaving Switzerland.

Coming back into Switzerland at Bardonnex is completely different, I've seen it unmanned but it's rare. You have three choices - get off at the junction just before the border and take the urban roads through Geneva, go around on the D884 to Ferney Voltaire, or chance it.

Swiss customs are very polite, if you just say, "Sorry, I meant to get off at the last junction but missed the turn - can I turn round and go back please?", they will let you go without buying the vignette. I was taught this tactic by a fellow transfer driver when we both worked for a company that was too tight to buy vignettes rolling eyes

- it works Laughing

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Those prices are via a Agent (Skyscanner )

Even direct with Europcar
Vauxhall Corsa French =£220
Vw Polo Swiss = £489

Looking on Google it only adds 20-30 mins to your journey for the French detour ??

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

Yes, as @Raceplate says, they usually (but not always) check for the vignette on the way into Switzerland, never[1] on the way out, and the chances of you being randomly pulled over by police on the very short stretch from the airport are vanishingly small. I'd take the risk and buy one on the way back if you need to.

[1] For values of 'never' that include perhaps five thousand motorway border crossings we've made over the years, much of them on a daily cross-border commute. The only time I have ever seen Swiss customs at an exit border post was on a small crossing at the very start of the Covid lockdown, when they were effectively just there to advise that if I went into France it might be difficult to get back in again.

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I agree that the checks at Bardonnex are on entering Switzerland and that risking an illegal dash (or sometimes more like a crawl) out to Bardonnex from the airport might be worth the small risk of anything going wrong. But you would need to allow extra time for getting back to the airport without a vignette. It's not a huge deal, depends on the opportunity cost you put on your ski holiday time (or that extra time in bed on leaving day).

To me, in winter, the risk of not having winter tyres if conditions were bad is much greater than the risk of running that exit stretch of motorway, but if you are correct about that price differential you are looking at a very big saving. Might be worth the risk of having to put chains on (and, even worse, take them off) a few times, to save that much.

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

If you are lucky there may be a vignette in the car from a previous user as happened to us a few weeks ago, though I would just have bought one for the sake of a few quid. Cars without one were being stopped on entering Switzerland but as others have said no one was checking on leaving Switzerland.

Ferney Voltaire is within the limits of the ‘Loi montagne’ so you may want to check with the car hire company if they will be supplying cars with winter tyres for your hire period - they didn’t know the answer when I asked a few months ago so have hired from the Swiss side for our February trip to ensure we get a car with winter tyres, but it’s likely you will have to rent snowchains.

After all it is free

The "Loi montagne" does not require winter tyres. One might hope that car hire companies would "do the decent thing" but that's probably a vain hope. It's a competitive business and they probably wouldn't reckon that customers would be prepared to pay any premium.

Winter tyres are mandatory on the swiss side for rented cars, not on the french side..... Usually on swiss side, chains are included in the rental price, they are optional (on a rental point of view) on the french side. The bargain is low.... If you are trying to save money, better fly to Lyon and rent your car there.

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Ok, the last few times they have not been included in the price and cost extra.

@wasley, suggest you check the Geneva airport website that has it's own comparison engine and I've found them cheaper than the usual comparison sites such as rentalcars.com. Winter tyres and vignette always included, chains are normally optional but they are sometimes included in the boot and you will be charged if you use them. Includes feee amendments and cancellations up to 48 hours.

https://genevaairport.org/#/searchcars
(scroll down)

You know it makes sense.

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

A snowHead

A snowHead

When we were deciding on our Easter holiday flights, I looked at the cost of car hire before booking flights. There's no point booking cheap flights if you then get hammered for car hire-it's the total cost which counts.
Our default is Geneva for convenience/familiarity, but a quick look at the car hire cost (£410 at Geneva v £120 at Lyon) and we switched to Lyon. Yes, the car won't have winter tyres but we are going mid April so it's a risk we will take and we won't be driving first thing in the morning or late in the evening.

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I bought a pair of snow socks off eBay for a tenner and guessed the size based on the car I'd hired - not that difficult as there's tolerance in the socks. Worked out ok. Very snowy week and the socks worked like a charm.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

I looked at hiring from the French side of Geneva for our Xmas trip. Was £350 v £550 from swiss side.
However, they wanted to charge an extra 130 euros to hire snow chains for the week!..what a wee wee take. Since we're arriving lateish on Xmas eve I did n't want to risk faffing around with sourcing snow chains from a supermarket, so I've settled on Swiss side for the simpler drive, winter tyres and snow chains in the back.

Snow socks from ebay though...that's got me thinking again...

Shipjack

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@Shipjack, I hired a car from the Swiss side in January (it was actually cheeper than the French side that week. It is sometimes) and had to pay extra for snow chains.

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Last time I rented from the French side the car had winter tyres on it anyway so you might be lucky. I'd not be inclined to pay for the rental snow chains - they were quite an expensive add on from memory and much more expensive than buying a cheap supermarket set. I'd wait until you see the car before deciding if you need chains as you might not.

After all it is free

Hmm..yes, you do hear of that as well I know. I hired from the Swiss side in the past and much as I was invited to pay extra for snow chains, I took a chance and did n't. I was pleased to see (as is often the case I think) there were in back anyway, but sealed up with cable grips. I think if I'd broken the cable grips I would've been charged but I did n't need them.
I'm perfectly happy with that arrangement to be honest, we're just going to La Clusaz (not very high) so I reckon winter tyres should be fine, with the option to use snow chains in the unlikely event that they're needed.

Just checked and I can now get a French side hire for £280...hmm.

Monkey..thats very interesting. Now I'm even more uncertain..

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@wasley Just be aware that there's plenty of forum feedback from people who have thought they 'got a good deal' through an intermediary broker and then arrived at the rental desk to find themselves presented with a bunch of additional, often mandatory charges. This is especially the case for 'winterization' i.e. the provision of winter tyres and/or chains. With no option to opt out. This is why, like @Ozboy I always start my search at the GVA pages that link to the ~.ch Swiss sites for the rental companies, which often quote different prices (and sometimes additional car types) to their .com or .co.uk equivalents, then use this as the comparison baseline. Sometimes the French offering is genuinely better by a big margin, but sometimes not so much, once a vignette, winter tyres and chains are factored in.

And just make sure that there's not a regional bus that takes you to/from your destination or a train link to, or near to, your resort. For both our trips out next month and Jan-Feb, we've switched from car hire to train/télépherique to get to our chosen resort, because it turned out both significantly cheaper and (certainly on the return leg), more convenient.

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As per @LaForet this is a screenshot from the .ch Geneva airport booking site and it is very clear to see that winter tyres are included. This booking was £50 cheaper than rentalcars.com at £157 for four days in December from the same company - Flizzr. First time I am using Flizzr and assume it’s similar to their parent company Sixt but with older cars.

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That's a very useful link - who cares if cars are a bit older? However, just a word of warning - swiss rental cars do not invariably have chains in the boot, and when they do, they are not always the right size. Human errors, perhaps......

Another tip: If you work for a large organisation that uses its own travel agency, you may find they can get you far better rental rates than for any individual. You just have to be clear that this is a private rental, as your employer's opt-outs may not be suitable. These agencies don't care who is doing the buying, and are often quite happy to get additional revenue from their corporate clients' employees. Not all do this, but it's always worth a try if it applies to you.

Another possibility is if you're in any sort of professional association or body. For example, when I was a member of the Institute of Directors, I got a flat 20% discount from Hertz. Also, free admission to various airport lounges.

You know it makes sense.

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

We hired a car before the covid from French side:
1. at the stand, the hire company offered us good deal on car with winter tyres with chain, and with the swiss signette. also the tires been cross climate. Not sure if you get proper winter tyres from any hire car hire company.
2. when you get out of the airport, make sence to mark a place in GPS, as on return back, we spend quite a time to find entrance to French side territory (may be due to road works). We cycled at least 10 times around the airport, as the road signs were missleading.
Good luck with your trip.

A snowHead

One thing just to note is they have done loads of roadworks/changes around the airport and ferney Voltaire, so the sat nav has a high chance of being out of date/wrong. Have Google maps on hand as well…

A snowHead

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

Another thing to check is the opening times for the French side, which I think (?) are quite limited compared to the Swiss side.

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That's true. I once had a puncture on the way to pick up a friend from the airport, late in the evening. It took ages to get in, but someone was waiting for me with a different car - that was Swiss side.

Anyway, snowHeads is much more fun if you do.

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

So do we know anything further on whether the french side is providing chains or socks?

Even Ferney-Voltaire is part of the region where the new law covers.

After all it is free

Has anybody suggested they're going to provide socks?? Seems unlikely, given how easily they get trashed.

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I was just wondering in case I need to buy a set after collecting the car. But if they come with snow socks then that's compliance.

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Geneva Car Hire French side??

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