Avidtravel

Much appreciated for any help that can be provided. I will be arriving at Miami Airport on the 8th of June and will be departing from JFK on the 20th. Car base quotes, are around 250 but the one way fee alone is around 300+ dollars (and most companies write the standard: you will incur on a one way fee upon delivering the car...). Any way to escape this fee, any coupons, discounts, deals, tips? Thank you so much for the help!

Speech99

I always use Costco or BJ's Wholesale for one way rentals. Actually, all rentals. Costco gives you an additional driver for free, and normally much better rates.

Avidtravel

Thank you so much! Sadly the lowest rate is BJ's for about 677usd. Crazy expensive

moondog

Misposted thread?

pdxkat

Have you tried looking at pickup/dropoff at NON airport locations? We do this for business quite often renting with Hertz - dropping off at the Hilton Midtown Manhattan. The rates are always much better than airport rates.

TTT

Do you need to drive? Flying between the two cities is $120ish. Amtrak is $169 for coach or $430 for a sleeper. You might be able to break the Amtrak trip up with stops along the way like Savanna, Charleston, Richmond, DC.

Jon_R

677 for two week of rental car is crazy expensive? Sounds about right to me even without the thousand mile one way charge. I think I spent 500 few weeks ago for a week pickup in ABQ and drop at DIA.

dmbolp

I save up my National free days for one-ways; they don't apply a one-way surcharge when using free days

drvannostren

Smort.

These one way rentals can be brutal. Living in YVR, I fly out of SEA a couple times a year for savings purposes. But parking in SEA costs me money and then driving home the 3.5 hours after sucks. Often I can just route my flights back through YVR, or buy a one way flight home from the US for 1/3 of the cost of the flight from Canada to the US (thanks taxes). The one way rentals are hit or miss. The first time I tried this I struck it rich, got a $45CAD one night (12 hours or so) rental from YVR (where I work, at the airport) to SEA drop off. I figured this was gonna be a regular thing for me...not so fast. Next time I tried, cheapest price I found was $100, so I played chicken and waited. Went up. Managed to get one at $109 and a flight home for $150, so I spent a bit more than it would've been to just park, by like $50 but it also meant not driving 3.5 hours home through Seattle on a weekday and their brutal traffic.

Funny thing is, they PAY people to do this. There are drivers for all the rental car companies at YVR that shuttle the cars back out to other rental facilities, so while I didn't think I was gonna get paid for it, I really thought airport to airport I'd be able to find good deals reliably. I tried again this week, nothing less than $200.

My only other piece of advice other than basically, don't ever plan to use 1 way rentals unless it's free like the guy above, but if you have to, google one way car rentals and your city pair. You might find a promo page from a company you hadn't thought of.

guv1976

Check prices again in April or May. Depending on how late the Spring Florida drive-out rates end, you might be able to get a one-way rental for $10/day, with no drop charge!

Speech99

This may seem out of the box, but what about the smallest U-Haul one way rental. They might have a van, and are setup for 1 way rentals already.

SinglePapa2

ever noticed drive-out thru mid-June? doubtful. You never even get drive-in beyond mid-December

flyerCO

Take a look at imoova.com, transfercarus.com, or cruiseamerica.com (look under rental deals, both oneway and the out of Orlando section).

They'll list oneway cars and motorhomes that need to be driven oneway. Normally at very reduced or even free rates.

beachmouse

While June is too late to get a general drive out rate, keep checking and you might luck into a company needing to do some last minute inventory fine tuning. A few years back, my sister paid like $17 to take a car from Nashville into Florida the week before Christmas.

For a trip booked more than six months out, I’ll commonly cancel and rebook the rental car 3-4 times and save at least 30% over my original ‘I can live with that’ reservation price

Auto Enthusiast

ever noticed drive-out thru mid-June? doubtful. You never even get drive-in beyond mid-December


Yes, I have. It is usually unadvertised, for specific cities, and sometimes even extends into July. Likewise, I've seen similar drive-in rates (unadvertised, from random specific cities) come back in Jan/Feb/Mar, or even at the last minute, a few days before Spring Break. (That's ironic, because the driveout rates get activated only a few days later.)