Starting in early July 2012 , Europcar in Portugal is providing a new service called Electronic Toll Service - "Toll Management", a solution for payment of ex-SCUTs (highways with virtual tolls) and highways with toll booths.
All our vehicles (passenger light cars and light commercial vehicles) are equipped with an electronic toll device Via Verde . This service is effective from the time when the electronic device is installed in the Europcar vehicle.
This service has the cost of 1.50 + VAT per day, charged up to a maximum of 10 days per rental. The value of the tolls will be debited at no additional cost to your customer s credit card until 30 days after the end date of the rental.
last minute low price airline tickets I just used this system in Portugal, renting a car from Europcar. I haven't seen my credit card bill yet, so I don't know if all went smoothly. But I saw several people last minute low price airline tickets ahead of me on line who were renting a car who were acting as if Europcar was trying to stick them with some extra charge last minute low price airline tickets for offering it. It really held up the rental car line while the staff tried to explain it over and over to renters.
For many tourists,the Portuguese system makes it simply impossible to pay the toll: there are no toll booths on some toll motorways, you can't pay on line and your return journey to your departure airport doesn't go live on the payment centres' last minute low price airline tickets computers last minute low price airline tickets till you're back home. Finding post offices in many small towns can be a nightmare anyway.
Some hire companies seem to expect you to authorise your credit card for retrospective payment: others simply tell you upfront that they refuse all demands from the system for toll payment and send the letters back with "hirer unknown" written across.
There are rumours in the Algarve about the EU taking legal action against Portugal over the whole issue (the damn roads were built with OUR money) - and whatever the situation today, last minute low price airline tickets it'll be different next year.
Just yesterday I drove over the border between Galicia and Valen a, Portugal. As you cross the bridge over the River Mi o into Portugal on the left you see some advertising hoardings. last minute low price airline tickets One of those hoardings states that the road is an electronic toll road. The rest I was not able to read as I only saw it at the last moment. What a great place to warn tourists. I was lucky as I was not travelling right into Portugal so I did not have to use any toll roads on this trip.
Flanner the rumours about going to the EU are way out of date. It is not going to happen. These tolls have been in operation for just about 2 years now.I have to say the information you have about only paying at Post Offices is also out of date.
It is possible last minute low price airline tickets I didn't hear everything -- or remember everything -- that was said to me at the rental desk. What was conveyed to me was that if I didn't want to use the device in my rental car to pay the tolls, I would be responsible for paying them at designated places.
Like I said, I haven't seen my credit card bill yet, so I don't know if everything worked smoothly. last minute low price airline tickets If it did, this strikes me as very tourist-friendly improvement on the system I had only read about before and didn't really understand.
I picked up the car in Porto and I was really surprised that the very first toll road I took had no manned booths when I exited, and I hadn't gone all that far from Porto. I had assumed I would only encounter such roads in rather remote situations.
The airport for Oporto is "ringed" with these roads. There is only one way to exit the airport without paying and that involves a torturous route via an industrial/business park. Not a nice route to enter a country is it?
I cannot comment on the situation in the North of Portugal, but if you plan to drive in the Algarve region, I strongly recommend to pay the aforementioned fee for the electronic toll device for the rental car.
The reason last minute low price airline tickets for that is that, once the Algarve motorway got built (and when it was still free), all signage but local signs were set up to guide you to the motorway. Quite reasonably so, by the way, as N125 was (and now is again) infamous for being one the busiest and dangerous last minute low price airline tickets 2-lane highways in the country.
And traffic on N125 between Lagos and Tavira is really heavy all day, often bumper to bumper, with interesting suicidal manoeuvres of overtaking to witness. Don't expect more than 50kph as an average.
This is somewhat helpful if you drive down from Lisbon on the A2 (with regular toll plazas to pay as you drive) without an electronic toll device. You can drive the A2 until it merges with A22, follow signs for Faro and take the very next exit (#9) which will take you to Albufeira and/or the N125.
CTT claim you can't pay anywhere else. The hire company agrees. Both agree that if you take the A22 eastbound to Faro airport, the payment doesn't come up on the CTT system till the following day. By which time you're back home.
I also learned that payment can be made in the post office, or in any shop that has a little red sign in the door, which says, in English "Pay shop". This can be a cafe/bar, newpaper/stationery store, or lots of other little places. It was more convenient for us than the post office so we went to the little place near our hotel wit the pay shop sign.
We heard our car rental agent rant about this issue when we returned our car to Viana do Castelo in March 2011. Either the system was not fully in place yet, or we just happened to miss the toll roads. In any case, this is much too difficult for us to even contemplate on future trips.
Vacation time (and money) is too precious to spend trying to find the right place to pay, the specific roads to avoid, and the dreaded last minute low price airline tickets surprise of "unpredictable" backcharges on our credit card. However much we loved Portugal, we won't be back until this insane system is changed. Hopefully, this "great idea" doesn't spread last minute low price airline tickets anywhere else.
Maybe you didn't understand the thread you posted in, but the point of the thread is that the system has changed in Portugal. last minute low price airline tickets You can rent from your Portuguese car rental office a device that functions like similar devices or stickers in the US. You pass through a toll booth without stoppng, and the camera makes a record of your plates or device, and charges the device --- and your credit last minute low price airline tickets card pays for it. The device is already in the car. The rental company turns it on for you.
The alternative for Portugal would be to have manned toll booths everywhere or install credit card payment systems at hundreds of toll booths. Portugal doesn't have the money to do that. I hope the euro crisis is over soon, too, but I wouldn't wait for the end of it to go back to Portugal. You could be waiting a long time.
From my understanding of the situation, the electronic tolls where placed on roads where the government could not put up a manned toll booth because of the width of the road/highway where they wanted to add the toll. It makes sense in a strange sort of way since it would be very expense to add several lanes (widen the highway) to install manned toll booths.
But if you rent out of the country, say in Spain, and drive into Portugal, the tourist is still up against it -- if I'm reading this right. last minute low price airline tickets Our solution last spring was to avoid the toll roads whenever possible, even driving the infamous A22 (with no problems, last minute low price airline tickets I might add) We did, however, drive one stretch of the northern toll road without paying simply because there was no way to pay. Even the post office couldn't take payment after the fact. On the very last stretch of the Algarve, heading back to Spain, we went to the post office and bought the toll fare to get us out of the country. So far, no charges have appeared on our credit card statement. It looks like the best bet for tourists is to rent their car in Portugal to take advantage of the "Via Verde" device.
Biz, thank-you for the clarification, but I understand completely. We are not interested in having last minute low price airline tickets a device that a) can't tell us what we are/have spent and b) charges our credit card long after we may have returned home. It doesn't sound like these devices can keep a running tab or that it is very easy to avoid the toll roads.
Well, given the current climate, it may be awhile before the situation changes, considering the current conditions. I have no problem dealing with the situation "as is" and it shouldn't deter anyone else interested in visiting Europe's underrated, and beautiful, "West Coast".
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