I just happened to check my AutoEurope reservation today, hoping that the price had decreased, when I noticed that the Orvieto office was no longer available. I called AutoEurope, and they told me that Avis had just notified them that their offices in Orvieto and Chiusi are closing (I think in April sometime). AutoEurope will be contacting clients with pick-ups or drop-offs in either city. I don't know if any other Avis offices in Italy are closing at this time.

My only option was to return the car in Terni or Rome. I chose Terni, but does anyone know how close the train station is to the EuropeCar office in Terni?

Lyn

This will be disappointing to many. In Terni, the Europcar site gives the address as:

STRADA MARATTA BASSA KM 2,800
C/O CONCESSIONARIA CENTRALMOTOR SPA

thus 2.8 km down a road out of town, some distance from the train station.

Bummer - that Chiusi office was way convenient.

Bill

Gazetteer of Umbria

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Bill Thayer,

This is very bad news! We were planning to take the train from Orvieto to Naples after dropping the car off at the Avis rental. Back to the drawing board on that one-glad the trip isn't until September so I have time to think it through!

Bad news!

We were planning to drop off our car either in Chiusi or Orvieto after our stay in Pienza.

What would be our next best bet? We'll be going to Positano after Pienza.

Bad news indeed! Do they not have Europcar offices there? I will write to my contact there (maybe Jim and Sally could too?) - to protest and see what is going on.

We always drop off the car at the Rome airport and take a taxi into town - stupid and expensive, I know, but it is just the easiest thing for us.

Bill,

The Via Istria address for Europcar in Terni is out on the Web where? The address I gave is on the Europcar site, both .com and .it .

The curious matter is that the Auto Europe site lists different addresses in Terni: via degli Artigiani 10 and via XX Settembre 80, for different companies, I presume. Neither of these looks very convenient to the station; via XX Settembre appears to be on the southwest edge of the city center, while the station is on the north edge.

Here (backsearch, this time) — but apparently not right; moral: no trust what read.

Pauline, Please check that out--hard to believe.

Thanks Andrew and Bill for the info about EuropeCar drop-off offices...as Andrew said, AutoEurope only gives the via degli Artigiani 10 and via XX Settembre 80 addresses, both of which appear to be completely across town from the train station(on viaMichelin maps). Curiously, though, AutoEurope says that the via degli Artigiani 10 address is "600 meters from the train station" -- they must have wrong info.

There is a Hertz office in Orvieto (just across the street from the train station) but AutoEurope says that the office is too small for them to have a contract with. When I called Hertz to check on their prices, they quoted a pre-paid, fully insured rental price that was $250 more than AutoEurope's. I said "no thanks" and decided to return the AutoEurope (Europecar) car in Terni (but if I have to take a cab across town to get to the train, I may change my mind again).

It will be interesting to see if Pauline gets any further information from her contacts at AutoEurope.

Lyn

I think I will check with my friend in Chiusi to verify the status of the office in that town as well. Can't hurt to double check everything before re-doing an itinerary.

Will let everyone know what I find out!

Steve

I have reservations to pick up and drop off in Orvieto. I just spoke to a CS rep from AutoEurope, and he says that they have no plans to close. I think I might just be getting the run around though. I hope someone can get better info than I did.

Since we use the Avis office in Chiusi quite a bit, Peter from our office near Radda called them to ask about the closing of their office. He was told that their Avis franchise license will expire mid-April and will not be renewed. However the owners plan to keep the office open as a car rental agency, he is not sure under what name. Peter was advised to call back after mid-April.
- Marie

Here's the text of an email I just received from Avis. Still waiting on one from Autoeurope...

Thank you for contacting Avis.

The Avis office in Orvieto, IT is not closing; however, it is becoming an
un-manned operation as of 03 April.

To make a reservation for this location, you will need to make a request
reservation for the Terni, IT location asking for a delivery be sent to the
Orvieto office.

Therefore, this cannot be done on-line.

Another aspect of this:

On the Auto Europe site (as an experiment), I asked for a quote for a rental in Orvieto on weekdays in June, and it said "Closed at pick-up time" and didn't fill in hours. I tried Chiusi and it says:

Chiusi Serviced By Siena
Rail Meet And Greet Or
Hours:
Open Mon-Fri 08:30 AM-12:30 PM, 03:00 PM-06:30 PM
Open Sat 08:30 AM-12:30 PM
Closed Sun

Also, as has been reported before, try Arezzo and it always shows no availability. Are all options along the A1 between Florence and Rome shutting down?

I emailed my contact at AutoEurope this morning. I will post when I hear back.

I also used the opportunity to bitch, once again, about their lack of maps or descriptions of the locations. If I were running AutoEurope , for every location I would have a text description (saying how you get to it from the center, what area it is in, if it is a location with lots of cars or not many, etc.) and a link to a map. Can you tell that I have more than once booked a pickup at a "downtown" office, only to end up lost in some industrial zone outside the city center?

Brett Gould, AutoEurope Reservations Manager, contacted me about this. This is the information he gave me. If a reservations agent tells you differently, tell them this is what you were told by Brett Gould.

AutoEurope will arrange for Europcar to deliver and collect from hotels or rail stations in Chiusi or Orvieto for an additional fee (currently the fee has been 100 Euro - this may change). They will probably come from the Siena or Terni offices.

You would be met at the rail station or hotel with your car and the paperwork, so you could take the car and leave from there. If dropping off, arrangements could be made to leave the car at the rail station.

This is a new situation and they are still working out their procedures. Some customers have decided to do this and others have decided to pick up at a different office (Siena, for example) to avoid the fee.

Brett said they will update their computer system to be more clear about these procedures.

This is distressing news to me. I currently have a reservation in Sept. with AutoEurope (Avis) to pick up a car in Florence and return it a week later in Chiusi, prior to taking the train to Bologna. What would be my next best option if the Chiusi drop-off is no longer available?

AutoEurope is recommending Siena or Terni. I would drop it off in Bologna (to save taking the train).

I agree with Pauline, there is a very good (if well used) motorway connection between Florence and Bologna and if you didn't want to negotiate the centre of Bologna to drop the car off, then you could go to the airport which is off an exit from the motorway.

I drove this stretch of motorway myself a couple of weeks ago and I think it took me about an hour (maybe an hour and a half) from the airport to Florence so not a bad journey.

Ordinarily, I would agree with the recommendation to just drive all the way to Bologna, but my boyfriend really wants to travel by train (he thinks he's already conceded too much to rent a car for our week in Tuscany!). So given that, I was looking at Arezzo as an alternative to Chiusi. Terni seems too far in the wrong direction, and I've heard that in Siena the car rental agencies are far from the train station. Is the rental place in Arezzo somewhat close to the train station there?

There is (and it still shows on the Avis site) an Avis office right across from the station in Arezzo, but when you request an Arezzo rental on the Auto Europe site, for a while it's been showing no availability. I put in a quote for tomorrow on AE and it does show a location at via Righi 21, which isn't that close to the station. One wonders if downsizing is happening with the Arezzo offices as well.