Well there ya go.
(Though I don’t see what the Penn State vacation schedule has to do with any other rental place…)
If your friend is in no shape to drive, he could ask somebody he knows in his hometown to drive him to you?
And how about trains-taxi’s combinations ? Or check out some university switchboard for rides asked and offered?
U-Haul’s a good idea. Vans and so on.
U-Haul is $19.95 a day.
What the hell does that have to do with anyone being young? The day before Thanksgiving is the most heavily traveled day of the year; of course it’s going to be hard to rent a car.
(Also, I just got scolded by a relative stranger today [a woman who works in the cafeteria here] for not going home for Thanksgiving. I can’t win, I guess. Not that I’d have rented a car, but still.)
This is moot if the trip was this past weekend, but… if blame is even necessary, it’s probably best placed on Enterprise and every other rental agency for adjusting their rental policies but not their inventories. Or on your friend’s wife for running out on him. Or this all happening just before a major travelling holiday. Or on yourself for not renting a car just in case you needed one.
But not on the college kids. College kids have been going home for the holidays since dinosaurs roamed the earth, and just because you walked uphill both ways in the snow doesn’t mean we all should have to.
Sorry for your friend.
A truly concerned bud would rent a private jet and bring babes, you inconsiderate dipshit. 
Let the kids have the cars.
And god knows what they could be doing in those cars, too- they could be listening to rock music, hopped up on the marijuana, making out in the backseat, even! Goddamn whippersnappers. Why, in my day, we had to crawl home for the holidays from college over white-hot coals, with 60-pound backpacks full of homework and laundry, blue snow flying, uphill both ways. And we liked it.
I hope that your friend is holding up and his life gets better.
To be honest, this is the part that amazed me the most. They were engaged for five years?
As for the rest of it, as others suggested, try contacting other rental car companies.
Hijack – the little trailers you sling on the back of your pickup are $19.95/day. Even the smallest actual vans are upward of $100/day, unless I’m missing something.
And dont’t they then charge by the mile?*
- I’ve never personally rented a U-haul anything.
ETA: I see Little Plastic Ninja answered the question already, but I want to be a part of things, so I’ll let this post stand.
(darn edit window)
Hm, I sit corrected; you do have to pay 59 cents/mile but apart from the $5 equipment service fee, that’s it.
59 cents/mile for a four hour drive? Four hours at 60 mph, we’ll call it, is about 240 miles, so $300 both ways not including gas. U-Haul does not, as I understand it, do unlimited mileage. Most car companies do, and even when they don’t they certainly don’t charge almost 60 cents/mile.
true, there is the milage…but the pickups and vans are 19.95 a day as long as you return it the same place you rented it.
I had a friend who ran into this sort of situation once…he went down to the ford dealer and asked to test drive one of the new mustangs over the weekend so he could convince his wife. Then he drove the test drive car about 700 miles round trip and brought it back on monday.
We rented a small box truck from uhaul to accomodate our move to the country. Two 18 mile runs to the new abode on a $30 rental ended up being over $80. I pit thee, small print at uhaul.
Um, where are you trying to rent?
Budget
Hertz
(have to look under requirements)
In fact, Hertz was the only one I found that wouldn’t rent to under 25, and even they would rent to 21+ if it was involved with a corporate account. Granted, there are (sometimes exorbitant) extra fees involved, but they’ll all rent to you if you’re 21.