Samuel Tao

Go to the airport and book a 1 day rental in the most expensive car you can that allows you to drop it off at an HLE. Then, right before you return the car, book the cheapest car at the HLE. Chances are the HLE will let you drive away with what you dropped off, especially if they don't have the car available/no one else books a dream collection or luxury car at an HLE.

Cymro

And just pay two one way fees and possibly higher daily rates because of your last minute booking!

And take at least an hour out of your day.

If the HLE is big enough, they can easily stick you in a Mistubishi Mirage and give your Mercedes GLS or whatever to the next person with a one-day, full-size one-way (which won't be that long in many locations). Or of course, they could simply be sold out.

Apart from that, flawless plan.

m907

This sounds a bit absurd. Have you actually tried this successfully, OP?

cestmoi123

So, you book yourself a nice Prestige car (let's say an MB GLE for the purposes of an example) for a one way from the local airport to your HLE. Then, you book a one-way compact from the HLE for the rest of your weeklong trip, with dropoff at the airport. For your plan to work, the following has to be true:

1. The savings by having a compact rental for the bulk of your trip outstrips the extra cost of having both rentals be one-way.
2. The HLE manager has to decide to give you the GLE on the compact reservation, rather than giving you any other compact/midsize/fullsize they might have, and keeping the GLE to use as an upsell, or a free upgrade for a customer with a fullsize/premium/luxury reservation or a customer with higher status than you.

The first requirement might happen, although it's by no means a given. The second is hugely YMMV, and I'd be really surprised if it worked with any degree of regularity.

LondonElite

I give this a 10% chance of regular success, at best. What is a HLE?

Cymro

I think the idea is to make a last-minute (and therefore not properly catered) one-way reservation. But there's nothing stopping the HLE upgrading someone else or just deciding, when you come to make the reservation, that they are sold out. Of course they could just charge an inflated rate when close to sold out but that diminishes the savings further.

I'm not saying that this will *never* work as suggested by the OP, but the risk of paying a premium in time and money just to drive a crappy car is way too high. To me, the gap in quality between a Versa and an Altima is far greater than the gap between an Altima and a 5 Series - so I'll just take my chances in Ultimate Choice, even if that means 'settling' for a regular full size car.

Cymro

Hertz Local Edition - non-airport, often franchise-owned stores in the US and maybe elsewhere, typically with smaller fleets which may or may not be fed from the local airport.

LondonElite

Thought it was something like that. I wouldn't take the risk or bother with the inevitable faff.

Auto Enthusiast

Most Hertz Local Editions (HLEs) are corporate-owned stores (NOT independent franchises) that are not located in airports. They are in cities and suburbs. The cars are at least as cr@ppy and the service is almost as bad.

Marko123

Seems like more trouble than it's worth. Then again I don't care what brand of car I'm seen in and if I did I wouldn't mind paying an appropriate price for it.