Hi,

I have had a number of rentals recently where I am dropping the car off at a different location (all Airports). The drop offs are same state, and usually within an hour or two (say, Dulles and National). I've been getting the worst cars. I booked full size and wound up with a Jetta with 35K miles on it.

Am I better off booking a same location pick up and drop off and changing the drop after I get the vehicle? Is that totally scummy?

I'm just a regular preferred member, for whatever that is worth.

Short distance one-ways with most companies tend to result in the worst car they have and want to get rid of. The exception is if you can choose your car, like with National.

Yep, 1-ways often get crappy cars that the location wants to rid themselves of.

Is it scummy to employ methods that avoid the scummy procedures of rental agencies? I don't think so, and I often do it that way. Just be aware that the rates can change significantly when changing the return location. Fortunately, my corp rate has a flat daily rate for 1-ways.

I think my corp has a discount for that as well. I'm going to give it a whirl.

New rule, two scummy actions do make a right!

Mmm this is on a subject of mine. I picked up a rental from a neighbor hood avis and plan on taking it back at my airport on Friday becuase I plan on getting another rental with points and upgrading the on spot hopdfuy for a good deal for the weekend. If I want to return that rental to my neighborhood Avis, will they give me a crappy one and no go those select and go upgrades? I paid 3 days for intermediate model using all points and plan on rolling the dice and hoping to upgrade to a BMW there.

I regularly do one-way rentals in both directions between a local Avis and the airport, enough that I know the guys at the local Avis very well.

Going TO the airport I tell them to give me whatever they want to get rid of, which means I get a mix of everything, up to and including premium cars (eg, recently had an Infiniti QX70).

FROM the airport I've never seen any signs they are deliberately giving me the "bad" cars, and multiple times I've been given cars that were less than 1000 miles on them.

However I seriously doubt they will give you anything like a BMW! The neighborhood Avis's don't generally stock those, and if someone does return one to them it immediately gets locked in the system and they can't rent - it has to shipped back to an airport location. On the occasions that I've been given one of those they had to specifically call and get it released for rental - and even then on the specific conditions that it was to be returned to the airport and was no more than a 1-day rental!

Thanks. I didn't plan on getting a free upgrade to a luxury car at the airport, I was expecting to pay hopefully only like $50 more a day for one though. I'm gonna make the drive out to the airport to pick up a nicer ride then hopefully try to return it to a local shop.