guv1976

How big is your family? And in what order do you plan to visit the various cities?

Ordinarily, it would be madness for a tourist to have a car in NYC, Washington, DC, and maybe even Toronto. Bus travel between NYC and Washington, DC, is frequent, and can be quite inexpensive if booked sufficiently far in advance. Take a look at https://us.megabus.com for just one example. Amtrak would be a little nicer, but more expensive. However, Amtrak fares permit free en-route stopovers of up to 24 hours, so if you also wanted to see Philadelphia and/or Baltimore, Amtrak might be worth considering.

If you need a car to drive between major cities, consider doing one-way, one-day car rentals.

For reasonably priced lodging near Manhattan, I would look at properties in Long Island City, Queens, or in Secaucus or Carlstadt, New Jersey. I've often stayed at the Holiday Inn Express in Carlstadt, and taken the 20-minute bus ride into Manhattan. If you collect IHG Rewards points, that property is just 20,000 points/night (or $100 USD if you buy IHG points when IHG runs a 100% bonus sale).

guv1976

The OP knows that, but he is looking for cheaper car-rental options.

SFO777

That would certainly not be Hertz. Suggest OP check out the Avis forum and the corporate discount codes.

RedChili

One reason for renting a car is the flexibility to stop and look at things along the way. Also, I'm not the kind of guy who want to spend my whole vacation in big cities. I would rather prefer to stay in a more quiet location, and rather commute into the big cities to visit a few sights. That's what we've done in Europe. We stayed on the oustkirts of Paris and parked our rental a block from the Eiffel Tower. And parking in downtown Paris was cheaper than similar locations in Oslo or Stockholm.

As far as I can see, Amtrak NYC-DC for a family of six would be a minimum of $245, plus the cost and hassle of getting to and from the train stations at both ends. We could easily end up spending $350 or more to travel between the two cities. Even at the crazy JFK/EWR Hertz prices, I could rent a van for four days for the same amount of money. I would rather "waste" two days of car rental instead of taking the train.

I've actually considered staying somewhere along the NJ Transit Line or the Staten Island subway line, but I believe that a car parked at the SI ferry will be a more convenient, cheaper, and more scenic way for a family of 6 to get into the city.

If we would be looking at staying inside the major cities all of the time, I would agree with you. But, as I stated above, I would prefer to also visit some more quiet places outside of the major cities. I would only do two days for downtown NYC and Washington, and one day in Toronto. The rest would be in more remote locations. Three major cities would be enough, so Philadephia and Baltimore would get the axe. And a one-way NYC-Toronto would probably be even more expensive than a week at the regular NYC rates.

SFO777

What prices are you seeing with Hertz? I see weekly EWR-EWR Avis minivan rates for $505 all in. If you pick up at Hampton Inn Staten Island, the price drops to $334. One way EWR-YYZ or Hampton Inn/SI-YYZ rentals are the same base weekly rate, $505 or $334 AI. The only difference with one ways to YYZ is that you pay USD$0.25 a mile... $250 for 1,000 miles.

Auto Enthusiast

I don't see mileage charges with regular retail rates, just a higher total cost. It's usually the flat rate corporate contracts that have a per mile fee on one-ways. We can't assume everyone in the general public has the same negotiated corporate agreement, so we should assume plain old undiscounted rate plans.

RedChili

One-way EWR-YYZ, I can't get any prices at all. It's just sold out. But that wouldn't fit my plans anyway, as I stated above.

Right now, I can see 7-seater rates from $835. I don't know why you get as low as $505. I can't even get near to that with the CDP I'm using. But if I change to e.g. IAD, I get $554. It used to be lower for both airports.

With Budget, I can actually see 7-seaters at EWR for $279, so I guess that I will just have to forget about Hertz for this rental.

m907

Good for you for wanting to see the actual country and not just wanting to spend all your time in the big cities.

Have you considered flying in and out of IAD or BWI?

RedChili

IAD is a possibility, which would solve my problems. BWI probably not.

cestmoi123

Just to be aware, if you're looking at hotels south of Newark, and the plan is driving from there to the SI Ferry terminal, and then taking the ferry in, you're looking at probably two hours each way between your hotel and Manhattan, and then you've got to get wherever you're going IN Manhattan. The toll for that drive is going to be $10-15 depending on time of day, although you only pay it one way (from NJ to Staten Island).

guv1976

The tolls on the Port Authority's trans-Hudson crossings only vary by time of day if one is using a personal E-Z Pass transponder. If one pays cash the rates do not change by time of day. If one uses a rental-car company's transponder, the renter will be charged the the full cash rate, even when the transponder provider receives a time-of-day discount.

But I agree with your general point that one should not plan on taking the Staten Island Ferry to and from Manhattan if one is staying in NJ.

guv1976

When the Holiday Inn Staten Island West has award nights available, they go for 15,000 IHG Rewards points per room per night. Now through May 1, IHG is offering an 80% bonus on points purchases, so the OP should be able to get an award-night room for about $83 USD by buying points now. But the OP would first need to ensure that award-night rooms (I assume he'd need two) were available for his intended dates of stay.

cestmoi123

That does look like a better option than staying in NJ. FYI, it's a HI Express, not a HI, but the point still holds.

RedChili

Well, I was looking at several different hotels. Some of them were in Rahway, and according to Google it's a 29 minutes drive to the ferry. That's the only part of the journey which would be a "hassle." The ferry itself would be a part of seeing the city. According to what I've heard, people spend hours waiting to get a boat to the Statue of Liberty, and we would just skip that part. The view from the ferry would be good enough for us.

If I'm staying in NJ and plan to visit Manhattan twice, I'll need to pay that toll twice. But if I fly into EWR, stay in a SI hotel and plan to spend two days exploring areas to the west or south of the city, I will have to pay the toll three times to get to the hotel, so that toll is actually a factor (although tiny) in favor of staying in NJ.

How would you travel into Manhattan? As far as I can see, six people round-trip from e.g. Rahway-NY Penn on NJ Transit would cost $91.4 plus parking at the station, while the SI Ferry would be $23 (parking and toll), and the ferry would be far more scenic.

Thanks, I'll consider it. But the HI SI will require two rooms, and it seems to me that I can probably get a hotel with one room for the entire family at a better rate and get some frequent flyer miles instead. I can get up to 1018 SAS Eurobonus miles per $100 when booking at Hotels.com. I can e.g. see the Best Western Riverview in Rahway at $121 per night including breakfast, which would net us 1232 miles per night. According to Google, it's a 7 minute drive longer than the HI SI.

jason8612

This thread seems to be about NYC in general - hotels and rental cars. I'll move this over to the NYC thread. (and updated title)

Thanks
Jason8612 Hertz Mod