Italy (Milan Malpensa airport) car hire recommendations please!

[Buzzybees]

Off to Italy in the summer, flying into Milan Malpensa. Need to book a hire car...any recommendations on decent hire companies or ones to avoid? Thanks!

Not sure if it operates out of Malpensa but avoid Sicily by Car. Car hire in Italy is very hit and miss ime.

Well I would NOT recommend Budget!

We had booked weeks in advance and deliberately chosen a model that should give plenty of luggage space as we would be four adults and a child.

When we arrived to pick up the car the length of time it took them to process us was beyond believable. It must have taken 30 to 40 minutes of rafting and entering things in first one computer, then another, printing things and so in. For Christ sake they knew we were coming so why wasn't it all ready? Then after all that we were informed that as the model we had requested (months ago) wasn't available we had been given a "free upgrade" to another sort of car. By then we were losing the will to live so we said OK. We had to trek across the car park to pick up our car and when we did we found that although it might have been a flashier style it was smaller luggage space than we really needed. We ended up driving from Milan to Lake Como with a suitcase across the knees of the back seat passengers.

"rafting" should say "faffing"

We had similar experience with the company I mentioned at Bologna. Peugeot 2008 substituted for C Max or similar, no refund of cost difference and it was all that was available. Boot capacity was limited so large bag had to go in the middle of back seat. Last year at Pisa we were allocated a Guillietta by Hertz instead of a compact mpv but had fortunately packed in anticipation. Car park is full of frustrated people trying to fit into less than ideal configurations in the heat and no staff on hand to give instructions or check condition of cars for hire or return.

We've used eurocar and Hertz in Italy a fer times. Both fine.

It was during the vomit years and they were both very nice about it.

originalmavis We used Europcar in Italy last year and, on the whole, they were quite efficient. The pick up went smoothly and the car was of an appropriate type. However, they did try to pull a fast one after we dropped it off.

We were flying very early in the morning from Rome, before the Europcar office opened. They had made us aware of the arrangements for out-of-hours drop-off (a box to put the keys and documents in) and that all seemed to be OK. However, they later contacted us to say that they were charging an extra fee for re-fuelling as we had not returned it with a full tank. We knew damn well we had because we had filled it within a mile of the airport. DH challenged them on it and they backed down and said they would waive the charge as a "goodwill gesture"

Cheeky! Always remember to fill up the tank on the way to the airport. As you get close the prices hike up and if you don't fill it up they charge you at a very high rate.

Also - speed cameras are sneaky wee light grey boxes on the side of the road. We thought they were weird phone exchange boxes. And watch our for congestion charge in cities and big towns. The signs are confusing.

Very helpful responses, thank you all! Sounds like I need to be prepared for it to potentially be a bit of a nightmare at pick up!

Plus the lots are always hot, no shade and tight so you need to get to grips with the car quickly. Check car ovet for any damage/scratches as you don't want to be charged later. It's fine though - we've not crashed to date!

Road signs and tolls can be a but confusing too but I am so jealous! I haven't had my Italy fix for about 4 years now!