Hertz - help with "Pick up from YYZ, drop off at BUF"

I'm currently visiting friends in Missisaugar Ontario, now I need a rental car from here or YYZ on Jan 11, and return it at BUF in the early morning of Jan 12. I checked Hertz, the cost is about $160. Avis is about $280 because of the one-way fee. Haven't checked other rental companies yet.

Never had experience with different drop-off issue, what should I do now? Is $160 from Hertz a good deal? :confused:

Can I get a better deal somehow? :confused:

Cross-border one-ways are a unique animal. All the rental companies might give you problems with this, not because they want to, but because the law kind of ties their hands. Canadian cars can not be rented locally in the US and vice versa. So they might have to do some special handling to give a US-bound renter a US-plated car. Canadians can not drive a US-plated vehicle into Canada, so even if they rent in the US roundtrip, they have to be given a Canadian-plated car if they plan to visit their home country enroute.

However, Ontario to Buffalo is quite common and so less of a headache. If they give out a Canadian car, chances are a Canadian will want to rent it in Buffalo, either locally or one-way back to Canada. The special handling issue is more of a problem if you're going further, say to New York City or Boston, because it's highly unlikely a Canadian car will find its way back. Others on this forum have said the Canadian location made them wait a few minutes while they fished out a larger car with Michigan plates to be returned to Boston, etc.

Try picking up from the Queensway HLE in Etobicoke. I have gotten one-ways to BUF for $80 from them.

Thanks guys !! ;)

I got a deal for one-way to BUF rental car for about $150, it's bit expensive, but better than MegaBus !! I try to avoid MegaBus because of the bad timing and the troubles on the bridge.

Cross-border one-ways are a unique animal. All the rental companies might give you problems with this, not because they want to, but because the law kind of ties their hands. Canadian cars can not be rented locally in the US and vice versa. So they might have to do some special handling to give a US-bound renter a US-plated car. Canadians can not drive a US-plated vehicle into Canada, so even if they rent in the US roundtrip, they have to be given a Canadian-plated car if they plan to visit their home country enroute.

However, Ontario to Buffalo is quite common and so less of a headache. If they give out a Canadian car, chances are a Canadian will want to rent it in Buffalo, either locally or one-way back to Canada. The special handling issue is more of a problem if you're going further, say to New York City or Boston, because it's highly unlikely a Canadian car will find its way back. Others on this forum have said the Canadian location made them wait a few minutes while they fished out a larger car with Michigan plates to be returned to Boston, etc.

Canadian cars can be rented locally in the US, we just sent them one-way towards Canada :)

I got a Mazda 6 at YYZ, it's a US car. But the mileage is about 50,000, it's kind of high for me.:( I prefer cars with mileage under 20k.

Yeah, funny how that works, they put the high mileage car on the one way rental to get it off their lot.

D'oh! You already picked up a car....

National YYZ also does one-ways to BUF. With contract ID 3715444 (Car & Driver, anybody can use) the total would've been $59.81 with no kms included. Drive 170 km (YYZ-BUF straight) at 25 cents each and the total would've been around $115 all-in. National's one-way rates are good like that when the prospective cities aren't too far apart. They do unlimited km rates with a high daily as well, but even just an Economy car is $220 tax in.