Dollar - Issues with Dollar website & One Way rentals

Hi folks !

Does anyone know how to book a one way rental on the dollar website witin one city ?

I tried several times to either pick or drop at the Los Angeles La Brea Av location to/from LAX.

The website doesnt even accept a station in the same city. Very weird !

Any ideas ?

Cheers,
S

Well, the first problem is that I couldn't find the La Brea Ave location.

The Dollar website is convinced that the closest location is Wilshire and Normandie in the Wilshire Plaza Hotel. Google (http://maps.google.com/maps?oe=utf-8&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&q=dollar+la+brea+los+angeles+ca&fb=1&split=1&gl=us&view=text&latlng=6142466738432222658&dtab=2&ei=24qPSeC0AZ3gsAP9ksyWCQ&sa=X&oi=local_result&resnum=1&ct=result) does list a location at 732 S La Brea Ave, but the numbers listed on that site both redirect (now; they're apparently closed) to a voicemail box describing the location as Wilshire and Normandie. Perhaps they've moved and Google hasn't been updated.

Anyway, once I got that, I tried to do a one-way from that location, and as you indicated, the site wouldn't allow it. However, I'm not sure this is a problem with the website: I strongly suspect this location is a franchise, based on a number of factors (the non-standard reservation terms and conditions, the local phone number [corporate locations usually only publish the national help desk line], and the fact that it's a small suburban location), and since Dollar franchises own their own cars (as opposed to, say, Avis franchised "agencies," which are run independently but use Avis Budget Group-owned cars), they can't let their cars be dropped off at a location that franchise doesn't own.

I did try to test a number of other intra-city one-ways, but the site appeared to only allow those between corporate-owned stores, which, since corporate offices are usually airport locations, tend to be in cities with multiple airports. For example, I was able to input and price one-ways between ORD and MDW or IAD and DCA. I was able to get the site to allow me to input a one-way between Atlanta-Norcross and Atlanta-Douglasville, but when I clicked "Get Rates," an error popped up that there were no rates available for one-way. This tells me that the system is set up to allow them (perhaps Norcross and Douglasville are owned by the same franchise or are even corporate locations) but the one-ways are manually being blocked, perhaps for inventory control reasons.

You might want to call the Wilshire Plaza Hotel location directly (click the link to Google above for the numbers) when they're open tomorrow and ask them if they can do one-ways to LAX.

If not, you can always return to the Wilshire Plaza Hotel, which is right next to the Purple Line Metro, and then connect to the Blue and then Green lines to the airport! ;) Otherwise, it appears (from Travelocity's one-way rental search) that Hertz, Avis, and Budget all have locations within a few miles of La Brea Ave that allow drops at the airport.

Hope this helps!

Thanks for going so out of your way ! ^

This morning I walked by the Dollar location and you are indeed right with the franchise suspicion.

However I remember the the La Brea location was listed on the website last month but I didnt bother anymore after Hertz dropped the price to 26$ per day incl 1700 BD miles.

They got awfully expensive though, especially recently where all the cupons ran out :(