I made 2 reservations with Hertz for my upcoming trip to the states, one from EWR-MCO and one MCO-MCO; before I did this I registered with Hertz #1 Club.

When my reservations (Prepaid through .SE site) where made I noticed that I was charged more than the standard price, I went through all the info and discovered that my #1 Club membership actually made it more expensive the price went up approx $60 as soon as I login.

I contacted Hertz several times to find out why they charged me more, they could not give me an answer, and finally they created a new member id for me and rebooked using that id.
So apparently something on m Hertz Club Id jacked up the price, no one know what.

The new ID they created for me was upgraded to #1 Gold, so my first ever Hertz rental will be #1 Gold, the second will still be on my #1 Club because it didn�t have the price issue and I don�t want to rebook.

So, remember to always check the quoted prices without your info, just to be sure.
/S

I would suggest rebooking the second one with the gold #. It would be much better to earn points on one account.

You are driving from Newark to Orlando?

Yes, Booked the first car EWR-MCO (Trailblazer Or Similar) for 10 days.
5 in NYC (Jersey) and then to Orlando though AC (2 nights), DC (1 night (Richmond)) and Jacksonville (1 night). After that we go to Orlando to change cars and we will stay there 2 nights before we continue to SOBE (3 nights), Miami (1 Night), Fort Myers (1 night), Clearwater (1 night).

This is a roadtrippish journey, that’s why we drive EWR-MCO

/S

Hmmm. Over the years, I've had a variety of funky pricing issues with Hertz on one-ways, but none related to my Gold number.

Just out of curiosity, what is that EWR-MCO rental costing you? Only reason I ask is that in the past 10 years or so I've probably done a dozen one-ways and never found Hertz to be even close to the lowest-cost option. I'm usually willing to pay a little "Hertz premium", but sometimes we're talking 100-200% higher, and I'm not willing to pay that much.

Most recent case - a standard SUV, one-way MSP-MCI, was $77 all in with National. Hertz would have been $220.

So if cost is enough of a concern to cause you to use multiple member IDs, it might also be worth it to look at other agencies. Among the major brands, I've found National and Alamo frequently have the best one-way rates. (Query them separately - even though they are owned by the same company, they frequently will have very different rates on the exact same car depending on whether you queried via Nationalcar.com or Alamo.com.)

The price I paid is approx $540 + $300 (One Way Fee)

This includes LDW/SLI/PAI/PEC and a full tank of gas (Trailblazer approx 20 GAL)

This is for a Trailblazer or similar for 9 nights.
No coupons used only my European AA CDP.

/S

I would be very surprised if you couldn't get a better deal on this. Try some of the travel agency websites (Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity etc) for starters and then work with the ones that come up as cheaper with discount codes etc.

A $300 drop fee isn't so cool.

Actually, with all of the insurance coverage plus a tank of gas, that might not be all that bad of a rate. In my mind, I was thinking $70/day for an SUV with no drop charges, but that would also be with no coverage and no gas. So your deal might be much better, depending on what it'd otherwise cost to get insurance coverage for the U.S. (Not sure what your credit card or personal auto insurance would cover.)

There are three ways the agencies price one-ways: (1) very high daily rates (I'm talking $100+ for an SUV), with no drop charges, (2) "regular" daily rates, with a drop charge, (3) low rental rate, but high mileage charges. Given your length and distance of rental, you actually want the drop charge pricing. So the $300 in and of itself isn't necessarily a shock - just consider it as part of the overall pricing.

The other option you have is checking rates as a 5-day EWR rental + a 4-day EWR-MCO rental. You might save a few bucks that way, and then you can consider the possible savings vs. the inconvenience of having to swap cars.

Thanks for all the input, to start with I planned to stay in Lyndhurst without a car, that would be a 5 day rental, same price as a 7 day rental, so then I figured I�d just get the car and not have to hassle with the transport to and from airport / Hotel / Car rental.

And since I don�t have any other car insurance it feels safer to just buy it all.
Before deciding to go with LDW/SLI I did a lot of reading to see if it was necessary for me as a foreigner, a lot of time spent, and not much smarter�

It�s not cheap, but in the �Tri-State� area what is?
/S

The entire State of Florida is typically considered a single location for one-way rentals, there are no one-way fees between locations. Rentals in Florida are also typically much less expensive than in the NYC metropolitan area. Because of this I would suggest you pick up your car in Florida as soon as possible, in your case, it sounds like the Jacksonville Airport would allow you to trade out your one-way rental for the Florida rental.

Also, it's almost always a bad idea to buy gas from the agency. They will charge you taxes on top of the fees they quote plus you're not going to be able to get the tank completely empty plus the tank most likely will not be completely full when you pick up the vehicle, in effect making the per gallon rate even higher.

Maybe the poster meant he is getting a free tank of gas with the rental (Hertz promotion on certain classes) rather then choosing a fuel option.?.?