My brother and I are looking to cross an item off of our bucket list. This item is to drive across america in 2 weeks with a few stops along the way. Every car rental company we have looked at will cost us about $2,000+. Is there a cheaper way to rent a car 1-way and keep it under $1,000?
I’m aware of the relocation service of peoples personaly vehicle and would prefer not to do that. We would like a rental car. Is there any loop holes or rental locations(like not picking up or dropping off at an airport) to make the rental cheaper? Ideas?
I’ve heard that truck rental companies will negotiate a lower rate if you’ll be taking the vehicle from a place that has lots of trucks (Boston, at the beginning of the school year, for example) to a place where they’re needed. I’ve never looked into it in detail, though. A small rental truck is not much harder to drive than a car. (And probably isn’t as comfortable, either.) If you can find a company that has trucks on one coast, and needs them on the other, maybe you can work something out.
I went to priceline and got a quote to drive from DC to Los Angeles in two weeks for less than 800 dollars. I can find a similar price at Kayak.
Maybe your search is too limited, prices for airport rentals seem much higher. Where are you driving to and from and when?
Enterprise specializes in non-airport locations and has low rates. However, rates for dropping at a different location are generally higher for any company. Check for restrictions in the contract about what states you may drive in, mileage charges, etc., especially if you plan to cross through Canada to get to Alaska.
This alone can make a huge difference in the rental rate. The cost of taking a cab from the airport to an in-town office for the same rental company can be much less than the cost differential of the higher airport office rates, especially for a multi-day rental.
Make it a true adventure and buy a $500 car off of Craig’s List and drive it. I said $500 so that you’ll have $500 left for repairs. That would be a good start.
One thought I had was to buy an old beater car for cash and then sell it at your destination. Sure, you’ll probably pay more to buy and get less when you sell even after accounting for depreciation due to mileage because of volume market realities (you don’t have a sales floor and you need to sell now, not keep the car on your lot until someone in need comes by), but the difference might be less or equal to the amount you would spend to rent.
The main disadvantages of this are that you’ll have an older, higher mileage car that may be more likely to break down in the desert 200 miles from the nearest town - do bring water, food, cell phone, and CB radio in case you are out of cell range. Know what CB channel, if any, local police monitor.
You may want to factor in gas prices there. But then again, if it’s a box truck you can put an inflatable mattress in the back and save on hotel rooms.
That would certainly be more of an adventure. It has always seemed to me that anything that runs is worth $1000 or so. Whether that car will run for 6 miles or 60,000 miles is the unknown factor.
Probably the best way to do it would be to work it so you can see most of what you want to see in a loop or maybe a couple of loops. Do you have fixed start and end points, or are you flying in from somewhere?
If you’re coming in from overseas, one way to do it could be to fly into some western city (say SF, LA, Vegas), drive a loop around the western US then hop a domestic flight to some eastern city and do the same thing and then fly home from there. If you’re sufficiently flexible and shop around, I’d bet that would end up costing less and letting you see more than trying to to a straight-through rental car trip.
The big thing is the one-way rental. Unless you just so happen to find a situation where the rental company wants to shuffle cars around, you’re basically paying to have the car shipped back to where it belongs. That’s expensive even on a relatively short trip, and is going to be ridiculous on a cross-country trip.
When my car was in the shop getting some minor body work and paint done, the insurance company gave me a rental through Enterprise. For a week I drove a car with the “service engine soon” light on and an expired registration. That’s one company I’d not trust for a cross country rental.
I think the drop-off fee is going to be a killer on any cross-country, one-way rental. I have seen one-way specials from time to time, but they’re usually only for pick-up in certain cities.
I’ve known people to sign up for “drive-a-way” cars; these are cars that need to get from one point to another and you get paid to take them back to the owner. These may be company cars, people who moved across country and had more cars than people, repo cars, stolen cars or whatever. My uncle used to deliver big box trucks all over the country from the factory by driving them to the buyer and then once there started looking for a way to get back. Sometime he took a bus home, but often times he would show up with a drive-a-way and ask for a lift to where it needed to be dropped off. This was before the internet and he did it thru contacts in the industry, but here is a link to drive away company (can’t vouch for them).
In my experience, car rental rates vary hugely between different locations, between different rental companies at the same location, and at different times, depending on demand. The additional fee for a one-way rental also varies a lot, depending on where the rental companies have more or less demand at any given location, compared to their stock. You need to use one of the above-mentioned services to shop around, and consider different options as to where to pick up and drop off the car. If the plan is to fly one direction and drive the other, compare prices for which direction you do the drive- they may be quite a bit different.
Just played around on Kayak (as mentioned above) and found rates (if you’re willing to drive a compact) from around $900 to around $1500 depending on the cities involved.
2 week rentals in January:
DC --> LA: $1179 (Hertz)
Miami --> Seattle: $1459 (Hertz)
Boston --> Portland: $914 (Hertz)
But while it looks like cheaper than $2000 is definitely doable, cheaper than $1000 will probably limit the start/finish options quite a bit.
I don’t know if Hertz is just generally better for one-way rates or if it is a bias of Kayak’s.
I did a one-way recently and had the best luck with Hertz. Enterprise is great with their neighborhood locations but unfortunately they only allow one-ways at certain locations. Maybe you’ll get lucky, though. If do try Hertz, try the discount code that is published on the mousesavers website (a disney planning/deal site). Just google “mousesavers hertz.” They have a public code and the rate is pretty good.