Hertz - One Way Rental Scalping

Rented a minivan OW DCA to Roanoke Airport, one day rental over $200 with whatever my usual discount is... I could have rented 3 days for the same $$ if I had returned to DCA. I don't get the OW penalty... what is the rationale? And what are strategies to deal with it? Are there companies that do not penalize the OW rental to this extreme?

The rationale is that they have to get the vehicle back again. How is it scalping?, it's just expensive. I find , depending on start/end locations, that a 2 or 3 day rental period may be exempt the OW charge.

Dave

The rationale is that they have to get the vehicle back again. How is it scalping?, it's just expensive. I find , depending on start/end locations, that a 2 or 3 day rental period may be exempt the OW charge.

Dave

It is scalping because there are likely a balance of people desiring to go every which way... it would all even out in the end. Heck, the car I returned to ROA had Texas plates on it. Last week, I rented a car in BUF that had Nevada plates on it.

When a single day's OW rental is greater than a 3 day regular rate, that's burdensome. They make the rules... but my question was whether there was any company that did NOT penalize OW rentals.

Check all agencies - one-ways vary widely. I've done quite a few, but I rarely do my one-ways with Hertz, even though I do 90% of my normal business with them. I think Hertz has probably decided that one-way rentals are more hassle than they are worth, so they just price themselves pretty much out of the market.

I'd done one-ways from Budget, Alamo, and National over the years.

When I've just been doing minivans, I've had best luck with Alamo/National. They tend to price their one-ways with no drop-off charge - they simply make their money on a high daily rate. So if it's a distance I can cover in 24 hours (incl. pick-up, load, drive, unload, drop-off), it ends up being maybe $120 or so all in, plus the gas of course.

If I need a full-sized van or a trailer, I go with Budget. They seem to have more choices.

I think it depends on your rental city pairs. Someone renting in ROA may not actually do a OW rental out of there again (and if you were heading DCA-ROA, the cheapest option would have been good ol' Greyhound!). I'm currently doing a 10-day OW rental from LBB to LAS & the total price for a Pontiac Grand Prix with Neverlost is 694.00 - they gave me the NL for free as part of an upgrade according to the guy at LBB, so they better not charge me for the 10 days when I get to LAS. By the time I return the car tomorrow night to LAS, I'll have put about 2,500 miles on in it, so I don't think that I was too ripped off on a OW rental - of course, work is paying for it.

I don't get the OW penalty... what is the rationale?

My friend that owns a Budget franchise regularly has to send an employee accross the country to pick up one of his cars that was sitting unused. It seems that when one of his cars ends up in someone else's territory it just sits there. (The local guy doesn't want to share his rental revenue.) Even if the car "just" sits for a week, the lost revenue really adds up.

If all of the cars and locations are "corporate" this isn't a problem. Then there's the issue of license renewal and retrieving a car that needs to be sold.

I recently had a OW rental for 7 days from YYZ to ROC that worked out to be about US$370, which isn't itself unreasonable for a weeklong rental of a full size sedan. I had been expecting more since I was returning the car to a different country than it had been rented in. Like any other rental, it will always depend on what you get, where you get it at and when you rent it.

BTW, Hertz has been running a few OW rental specials lately. It always helps to check out the specials before renting.

Off topic: Leave some extra time when returning a Canadian rental in the US, as they have to call the rental location in Canada to close out the rental contract.

It depends where you rent. I rent from PHL to EWR and haven't paid a fee. I often rent from an HLE and drop the car at LAX: no fee there either. The further apart the locations, the bigger the chance of a drop charge or a price difference.

I recently had a OW rental for 7 days from YYZ to ROC that worked out to be about US$370, which isn't itself unreasonable for a weeklong rental of a full size sedan. I had been expecting more since I was returning the car to a different country than it had been rented in. Like any other rental, it will always depend on what you get, where you get it at and when you rent it.

BTW, Hertz has been running a few OW rental specials lately. It always helps to check out the specials before renting.

Off topic: Leave some extra time when returning a Canadian rental in the US, as they have to call the rental location in Canada to close out the rental contract.

I once rented OW from SEA to YVR. First, they gave me a British Columbia registered car. But at the YVR airport, they could not "close out" the rental with the little hand held units... told me that I would get the closed out contract by mail.

So in summary, there is not any single company that makes a point of not penalizing OW rentals.

BTW, Hertz has been running a few OW rental specials lately. It always helps to check out the specials before renting.

In the fall, Hertz (and others) will run very cheap one-way specials going south. I've seen big ads for $9.99/day if you'll take a northeast car down to FLL or MIA for them. Since most airlines now allow you to fly one-way (at a reasonable cost, without doing throwaway tickets and whatnot), it might be kind of a fun trip to take if you want to drive down the coast.

I've also seen the reverse offer after Spring Break is over.

I recently did a walk-up OW with Hertz from SBN to ORD. There was no penalty. One of their competitors at SBN quoted me $30 more than Hertz, and the other two wouldn't even do it. I image there's a lot of back-and-forth between SBN and ORD due to their proximity. When there's a flight canceled between those two locations, it's generally quicker to just rent a car (or take the South Shore Line, if the schedule suits).