Drive one-way for $1/day
 

Only from Boise (BOI) :confused:

http://www.dollar.com/specials/featured/roud3.aspx

Partner Thrifty has more options, including the perennially popular Seattle to San Diego. Cars are also apparently needed in Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Denver.

Remember, one-way specials are almost always between corporate stores. Their purpose is usually to prepare for an upcoming big demand season when the rates are expected to dramatically increase, and the company wants to prevent a sold-out situation to preserve some inventory for truly needy takers.

While Thrifty started out as a franchise support business, their SEA and PDX stores are corporate, whereas Dollar in those places is not. (Those locations are owned by the same franchise, with one-ways allowed in-network.)

This brings up again the interesting question about whether or not CA emissions laws are unfriendly to incoming out of state rental cars, and if so, whether or not Dollar/Thrifty chooses to follow it. Some said Dollar has a separate fleet for LAS to LAX one-ways, with CA plates only, from the one-ways out of CA. Some might wonder how many non-CA cars SEA and PDX will give out to go to CA in this case.

Or may be the sales taxes are lower for fleet cars in ID and the company is just getting free drivers to CA instead of paying the trucking company?

Did anyone challenge the CA emission laws at the US Supreme Court? Seems to me that "emissions" are not confined to state borders. Besides, it impedes trans-state commerce.

I doubt it. This was discussed in another thread last year, regarding if there's a significant financial incentive to purchase and register more cars in particular states. The answer from the agency reps on here was that it all averages out. They purchase cars when they anticipate demand. As the demand shifts during the shoulder season, the newly purchased units in the upcoming hot spots wouldn't necessarily be enough to prevent selling out and losing business to companies that still have a few cars left, even for a high retail price.

Shipping cars costs money. Having the customers pay to one-way cars would generate revenue and help solve the inventory problem. But it takes a person with patience, stamina, interest, and above all, funds, to do a roadtrip. Hence the one-way incentives. If not enough people bite, such as bad weather, bad timing, bad pricing, etc., there's a glut at one place and a shortage at another, which costs the company money.

Did anyone challenge the CA emission laws at the US Supreme Court? Seems to me that "emissions" are not confined to state borders. Besides, it impedes trans-state commerce.

I wouldn't count my chickens on that. When I drove a CA-plated Mazda 3 from Hertz one-way SEA to SAN last June, I was amazed to see permanent-looking tollbooth-style signs announcing a checkpoint ahead. This was on I-5 southbound soon after the CA border with OR. Sure enough, the lanes converged at several stop signs. The police officer said they're looking for pest-infested fruit. Goodness. This is a state that seems to think it's a different country.

Eh, it's no different than Hawaii's agricultural checks. For a state that depends so heavily on agriculture and provides so much of the nation's food supply, I can understand why they are protective of their produce.

California has a multi-billion dollar agricultural industry, and that's just one method they use to prevent pests being brought in from outside the state. You'll find the same type of checkpoints along I80 at Truckee and US50 at South Lake Tahoe. There's also a checkpoint on the freeway coming into CA from Las Vegas.

http://www.cdfa.ca.gov/phpps/PE/Exte...n/borders.html

I was thinking of doing BOI-LAS via I-84/15. The scenery should be spectacular.
But after giving it some thought, I decided that I would be bored as hell driving for a week just by myself. Also, o/w flights out of LAS to BOS are too expensive.

I drove 2,200 miles by myself through Utah and Colorado in May 2008 and 400 miles in three days by myself through Colorado last month, and I loved every minute of it. And I'm not even an extreme introvert...

And no different to what happens in Australia! Certain parts of Australia are affected by fruit fly and certain parts are not. Taking any fruit into the areas not affected and across certain state borders is prohibited, with fines if you do. A mate got fined AUD75 for taking an apple from Victoria to South Australia recently and pleaded ignorance, but was still fined. As jackal said, I can understand why.

400 miles in 3 days isn't much, even on your own! I've driven from Melbourne to Sydney (550 miles) and Melbourne to Brisbane (1,000 miles) on my own with stops for fuel and food only! Granted, it was to get somewhere, not sight see!

The 2,200 miles in May was in the span of 5.5 days... :p

I also did 2,500 miles in 8 days from Cairns to Adelaide via Alice Springs, but that was with one other person.

Nothin' like a good road trip! :D

I think those beat my recent US trip where I covered over 5,000 miles in 3 weeks with one mate from SFO to SFO, via Yosemite, Las Vegas, Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, SEA, Portland, Eugene, Sonoma, Napa.

As you said, nothing like a good road trip! Especially in a red Camaro!

Dollar's Boise ID one-way special seems to no longer be in effect. It's not listed anymore on the specials section of the website, nor does the special rate come up in a manual search. Thrifty's promotion from SEA and PDX, however, remains prominently displayed on the home page.

I hope to see these $1/day deals again this year :)