Exchanging cars... (how) does it work?
 

Contemplating a 5 day rental for next week. Looked at all the locations relatively nearby (LGA, JFK, and any HLEs that'll be open when I need them to be), and the cheapest place by far is an HLE at 225 Northern Blvd. Econ thru Full size is around HALF of what they are at the airports. Now my concern is they're gonna give me a POS clunker for me to take ~2,600 miles... but I've heard about people going to airport locations and basically swapping cars. How does this work?

In a thread from last year, one guy mentioned that if you exchange cars at some point, the two locations (origin, and swap location) split your money, so you can sort of haggle your way to a decent car... also mentioned that he got an HLE mgr to upgrade him if he swapped his car from the airport. Is it really that simple? LGA and JFK would be on my route (I could go either way), so my thinking is that if it is this easy, I'll take whatever they give me and get something more decent at one of the airports.

Thanks in advance for any advice :)

-J.

EDIT: Just realized I can't make the trip. But I'm still curious, how does this work?

If you are that close to the airports, chances are they are all getting their cars from the same location. Don't think you will see much of a difference.

2,600 mi in 5 days? Was this intended to be a one-way across the country? I usually do those in 7 days, so I can see it in daylight :) Others with much more time, and often a more meandering route, have done it in a month.

Anyway, Hertz likes to give away junk for one-ways, but I doubt the pickup location would risk doing that for such a trip. There would be a higher probability of mechanical trouble, and associated costs, coming back to haunt them.

Interesting replies, thanks!

In 2009 I did a cross-country road trip in my friend's former Honda Civic Coupe (it's real tight with 3 people!) so I've seen a lot of it... this was actually going to be a round trip to Florida to look at a couple of schools.

-J.

I'm curious about this as well. Am booking a two-week one-way from a corporate hotel location in L.A. up to the airport in Seattle. Anxious about getting stuck with a beater...and the location doesn't guarantee Sirius/XM so can't play that game either...

For that, you'll probably get a car with out of state plates. Please see the relevant discussions in other threads.

Yes, but any chance I could still exchange at an airport location?

I find that if you get a car you don't like just go to airport and exchange it. Just give them some reason (wither true or not). I used excuses from the car shakes to touchy brakes to tire pressure light comes on sometimes. The agent inside that swaps the contracts never verify anything.

It best to do it on a Fri or Sat when they have a large selection of cars (in most cities). I usualy drive around the gold stalls and right down stall numbers of a few cars I like and they will give one of them if the car is not assigned. (Used to be alot easier to see which ones where assigned because they would have a tag hanging in them).