I'll be renting a car in late August from PDX when I travel to the area to view the eclipse.

I made a reservation for a car with Thrifty a while back when the rates were reasonable (around $200+) - they are now hideous (like $600 - $800 for a weekly rental - or even sold out!). My return flight has now changed to depart 5 hours later. If I change my return time now - it will recalculate my rate and I'll be paying about 3 times as much as I reserved for originally.

So obviously it makes sense to just return the car late. I rented with Thrifty twice before recently, and recall paying an hourly late return of something like $15 - but that was at busy airports with tons of inventory (LAX and ATL).

I am not sure if this fee is static, or varies based on the supply/demand at the location (which in the case of PDX happens to be extremely high demand at that time).

Anyone know if the hourly late return fees fluctuate based on inventory/location?