Guy Betsy

Why are oneway rentals so expensive?

I thought I was getting a great deal for a full size under their specials for about $60 a day until I saw the final amount to be around $800 for a 2 day rental. In there it then states the drop off fee of $550 !!



Looks like National is the cheapest at $0 drop off fee but no free km. So a oneway Toronto - Ottawa - Montreal is going to set me back at $150 in mileage alone.

Does anyone have any other recommendation other than buying my own car?

jackal

One-way rentals are so expensive because it's typically not something that a rental location wants to do--why would a general manager want to give up a money-making asset? He'll only do so if it's made worth his while in the form of a drop fee--more to discourage it from being done than anything else. (This is my theory, anyway--nothing to support it.)

As you found, watch other companies, too, when booking one-ways: ones like National and Avis don't charge a drop fee, but the daily rate is usually much higher and you do not always get unlimited mileage. This can make National et al. better for short (time and distance) rentals, but Dollar/Thrifty a better deal for long rentals, since you usually get unlimited mileage, and the rate itself is whatever the regular daily rate is for that location. In other words, a two-day one-way with National might be $75 x 2 = $150, whereas Thrifty might be a better deal for a week: $150 per week + $200 drop fee = $350, versus National, where the weekly rate for a one-way might total to $450.

Most medium-distance one-ways in the States with Thrifty seem to have about a $100-$200 drop fee (I was looking at $150 for CLT-MCO, I think). I'm a little shocked that the drop fee would be so high, but Thrifty Canada is virtually a separate corporation from DTG in the U.S., so they do their own different thing there.

Aside from checking all of the companies and price-shopping, I'm not sure I really have any practical suggestions for you...sorry!

Guy Betsy

Thanks jackal for the informative tip!

I do have a free 2 day coupon with National so I might just use that and pay for the mileage at 0.25 per km. But even driving from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal in 2 days and full coverage will cost less than what Thrifty wants to charge me in the drop off fee.

jackal

Not sure, but I did a one-way with Avis in the States once and got unlimited mileage (strangely, I got unlimited mileage if I booked with no corporate code and capped mileage if I booked with my corporate code!). Not sure if Avis does one-ways between the locations you're looking at, but it might be worth checking them. (Companies will usually only do one-ways between corporate-owned locations--one-ways between franchises or between franchises and corporate stores would be complicated, as the franchisee would basically have to sell the car to the other franchise or corporate when it got dropped off, since they're basically separate companies!)

Guy Betsy

Yeah. Ditched Thrifty.

Went with National. Got a great discount daily rate of $117 with unl mileage. But its only a oneday rental which is fine by me.

Pick up car by noon. Drive to Ottawa. Spend night. Next morning, drive to Montreal. Drop off car by noon or hourly charge of $45!

jackal

Hourly of $45--up to the next day's charge. They won't keep charging you $45 an hour for the next 500 hours...doesn't work that way (fortunately!).

Guy Betsy

Yeah, I know its up to the daily rate! But still !

Tuneman1984

The problem with Thrifty Canada is many locations are franchises. Meaning when a car goes from Location A to Location B, an employee is going to be on a Greyhound to Location B to fetch it after it returns. The drop fee, while high, is more recovery than anything.

Still sucks for the customer, so that's why I turn to National for my one-ways being that they're usually short.

Snoopyo

If you have some advance booking, you might want to investigate VIA rail. For the rent price plus gas, you might be able to go with discounted VIA 1 which is a very comfortable way to go. The downside is that you won't have a car so there can be additional transport cost in each city.

Economy is about half the cost with advance booking with firm travel date/times but then you miss being feed and watered in a manor equivalent or superior to AC Business Class on rapidair.

HotAirBus

Flying would be cheaper for you. Why drive at all?

Brendan

I would do VIA if U don't need to go to specific places in small towns or suburbs.

Car rentals in the USA is much more 1-way friendly than Canada--esp. Hertz & often National. In the late 1990s they wised up to realize that if someone wants to drive Pittsburgh to Chicago, next week another customer will want Chicago to somewhere in PA, so most cars get back. Go to any airport rental lot & see how many out-of-state/ province license plates U see!

Travelocity is best for pricing 1-ways because U can enter either airport, downtown, or suburban addresses for pick-up & return points.

Finally, if U do book a rate with a drop charge, ask (a day before by phone, then on arrival) if they have a Montreal-owned car that needs to be returned! If yes, they may waive the drop charge.

Auto Enthusiast

Actually, I asked several of my NY metro rental agents, from several different nearby companies, about the cars they wanted to give me with out-of-state plates for my local rental.

In fact, I've rarely been given a car with NY plates. Ironically, when I traveled to the cities those cars came from, there were very few NY, NJ, and CT-registered cars on their lots. There were more in-state cars with a smaller and different out-of-state mix. This suggests that it is possible to estimate where visitors to a particular location tend to come from, and proportionally how many out-of-town visitors come, by a quick glance at the nearest rental car lot. It also suggests the willingness of people from different parts of the country to endure long drives.

All the rental agents said that the locations are franchises, but the cars are corporate-owned. I checked the registration, and sure enough, it said: 'owning city: NY--, --Holding Corp.' The agents all said that the cars randomly circulate around the country, and they are kept at each location until it's either time to sell or someone one-ways it somewhere else. As is said in mathematics, random variations tend to cancel out.

Therefore, there is no drop charge per se, since the cars remain where they are brought. One-way rates are calculated based on the supply and demand at each location as well as the estimated mileage you'll be driving between them.

Tuneman1984

Auto Enthusiast, welcome to FlyerTalk and thank you for the informative post. What you're saying reminds me of the U-Haul model. Since it's never guaranteed where a truck is going to end up, they keep a fleet of trucks specifically for that purpose that are owned by the company and rotate through their locations. The rate is then set by supply and demand. For instance, trucks and trailers to California are usually expensive, and then dirt cheap the other way around. It costs U-Haul way less to rent a truck to Seattle for $1 (not even kidding, it's happened before) than it is to ferry the trucks back to where demand is high.

jackal

You don't have to confirm, but I'm guessing that you talked to Avis. They have a system of "agencies," which are franchises operated independently but that use a corporate-owned fleet. Interesting system.

Of course, it's also possible that Hertz or one of the others (but not Dollar or Thrifty) does something similar.

The assumption an earlier poster made that if people want to do one-ways from XXX to YYY, there are also people that want to do one-ways from YYY back to XXX isn't always correct. Therefore, many cars from XXX will end up at YYY and won't make it back. (A local example is that there is high demand for people to rent in FAI and drop in ANC but relatively low demand to rent at ANC and drop in FAI.) However, in a nationwide system, there is also demand for people to pick up in YYY and drop off in ZZZ and then on back around until some cars eventually do get dropped back at XXX. One-ways have to be managed carefully, though, to avoid a shortage of cars at XXX.

Auto Enthusiast

Yes, I had an interesting conversation with my neighborhood Avis when they gave me a really swank Pontiac G6 GXP with Maine plates. They said it was just returned from a local rental that morning, but came from Maine about 2 weeks before. When I returned it, they had another G6 GT parked nearby with Massachussetts plates and were busy checking in an SUV from Ohio and a Hyundai from Connecticut.

I also spoke to Hertz a while back, when they gave me a Kia from Texas. They said the last renter drove 20 hours from Dallas. I asked why someone would do that, and they said such things happen more when bad weather forces flight cancellations, and the renter knows they'll be guaranteed to be home in a day if they drive. The agent also said he gave one of his NY cars to a renter to take to Seattle, so now somewhere in Seattle there's a car with NY plates. He said the company doesn't care about where each specific car is, since it will be rented out again at the destination, as long as the overall number of cars in a geographic area match the expected demand.

The only time they do send cars somewhere else is if the computer says the car is due for maintenance, if a customer orders a specialty vehicle like an SUV or minivan that another location has, demand shifts seasonally like NY to FL, or less commonly if the customer smoked in or damaged the car. Most locations, especially off-airport ones, are not equipped as service facilities. To avoid depleting each other's fleets, bringing a car for service or getting a specialty vehicle involves a swap for something else to bring back. If the car needed service, it will next be rented out again at the facility with the service station.

While the self-move companies have a similar setup, with a rental car you're guaranteed to have something at least as nice as what you reserved at a set location at a particular time. U-Haul seems to have a lot of complaints in that regard.