Car rental in Germany, travelling to France. Require Crit'Air sticker

Ceist_Beag

We're flying in to Frankfurt and hiring a car from there and most of our trip will be just across the border in France. Part of our journey is into Strasbourg and we received an email from the accomodation provider stating we need to display a Crit'Air sticker in the car. Has anyone any experience of this? I have tried to contact the rental agency but the site I booked it through (AutoEurope) are just directing me to the car rental company (Thrifty) and the phone number I tried for them is all in German and despite my best efforts at figuring out which number to press to speak to someone, so far I just end up getting disconnected!

From what I can see the onus is on the renter but according to https://www.certificat-air.gouv.fr/ you cannot order one without the car registration details, which obviously we won't know until we're actually at the rental desk in the airport! We did include travel to France in our rental booking so Thrifty do know we are bringing it into France. Would they be proactive enough to put the sticker on the car or am I being overly optimistic here?

ollaetta

I think you are being over optimistic unfortunately. While Thrifty know that you will be taking the car into France, unless you specified driving in Strasboug they won't know you'll be driving in a city that requires the Crit'Air badge.

Regarding who is responsible to get the badge I could be wrong but I think it's the actual owner of the car that must apply. What about maybe ringing the Irish branch of Thrifty? I had a problem with a car rented from Avis in France a few years ago and was getting nowhere due to the language issue. Rang Avis here in Dublin and they were able to liaise with the French office and sort me out.

Ceist_Beag

Good suggestion thanks, I'll try the Irish number for Thrifty

Ceist_Beag

In case anyone else has a similar query in the future, Thrifty Ireland wouldn't help any more than AutoEurope would but I eventually hit on the right combination of numbers when contacting Thrifty in Frankfurt to get to speak in English to someone and once I managed that it was very straightforward. The chap simply had to tick a box on the order to get the sticker included. Hopefully it's actually in the car once we pick it up now!

joe1303l

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120631896#Comment_120631896

Looking to do something similar this summer, did this work out okay ?

munchkin_utd

I heard of a similar case where the car rental office provided the renter with the car info and they could order online.

When ordering the crit air sticker you get a temporary "sticker" which you print out and attach to the windscreen so really all you need to be legal is the car details and access to a printer

Ceist_Beag

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122139782#Comment_122139782

It did yes, sticker was on the car when we picked it up.