One Way Car Hire in USA - Best Companies to Search?

Hi

I'm sure I've seen my question answered before, but searching for "one way car hire" produces a lot of results for "one", "way", "car" and "hire"....

For our New Orleans / Nashville / New Orleans trip next year we're trying to work out whether to do a round trip from New Orleans or to take a longer road trip up from New Orleans, ditch the car in Nashville and then fly back down. Can anyone recommend which hire companies / comparison sites to start the research with? I picked Hertz at first, and was initially pleasantly surprised with the ease of the process which appeared to allow a one way option, only to click on the t&cs and see the words "one way supplement will be calculated and applied when car is collected".

Any advice and recent experience appreciated.

Thanks

Paul

I usually book car hire in the US via Virgin Holidays as you can get some decent deals and they usually come with some decent insurance/excess protection.

Had this problem earlier this year, pjh, when I wanted to take a 3 or 4 day road trip from Boston (after a visit) to Savannah then down to Orlando. Best one way drop off fee I could find was approaching $500!!!!! Needless to say, I declined the very kind offer, and flew down with Delta. Good luck finding what you want.

I tend to use Rentalcars.com and then Alamo
I have done a one way from Orlando to Atlanta and that cost an extra $100
It was a four week rental. I don't know if the time makes a difference.

Dick D

I have previously used usrentacar.co.uk

We always hire via Virgin Atlantic (not Virgin Hols) as they use Alamo. Their prices are consistently cheaper than using the Alamo site itself . You will have all the insurances etc you need included in the price. We have always found Alamo to be very good and have never encountered any problems.

Hi Paul,

Coincidentally I have just finished rebooking my Jamaican and USA car hire bookings for next week and November because the prices have just dropped because of car hire company promotions.

I use autoeurope.co.uk for two reasons (apart from the obvious free cancellation up to 48 hours before start date of rental on all rentals regardless of who it's with) - firstly it searches all the majors plus some locals too (e.g. in Jamaica it also quotes Island Cars) and secondly because of the rebooking process if rental prices fall between when you book and when you travel. So, I book as soon as my flight is confirmed and then, pretty much check fortnightly if prices have changed or if I get an email from autoeurope announcing a sale with Europcar, Hertz or whoever. When you find there is a better price you simply click on modify reservation in your most recent confirmation email, choose change vehicle and it repeats the search on the dates/times you already have and lists the new cars/prices available …. if you like the new prices (as cheaper) or want to choose a better / different car as prices or circumstances have changed then you choose what you want and then it will let you rebook on the original credit card (without having to reenter details) by cancelling the original charge and applying the new charge! So easy and this is 2nd time I have updated those two bookings I had (latest price drop saved me almost £100 on my Jamaican trip and another £20+ on the already nice price on my USA trip).

Okay, after that long introduction which explains why there is no need to wait for a car hire company special promotion or sale just go ahead and book straight away …. your specific question on the one way hires is that yes they do those one way hires too and the prices quoted include the one way rental fee while you're choosing your car from the list (in fact it is highlighted separately underneath the total) so on a sample booking for "Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport, 04 Mar 2019, 12:00 and drop off Nashville International Airport, 14 Mar 2019, 11:00 " it shows the cars in overall price order (including the one way hire fee) and you can see within the prices is that typically (on a 'large' car for a week) Budget would charge £75.24 as one way fee whereas Alamo would charge £100.08, Avis £76.03, Dollar £250.19, Thrifty £250.19, Hertz 250.19 & Enterprise a healthy £300.23 etc. EDIT: The reason they separate the one way hire fee element is that you do pay that 'locally' so they don't charge it at the time of booking and the only change in the amount would be due to exchange rate fluctuations i.e. they give you an estimate of the price you will pay locally, in local currency converted to £, based on the exchange rate at time of booking but if exchange rate changes between when you book and when you arrive to collect the car that payment amount would change when converted back to £ while staying same amount as at time of booking in the local currency (which is presumably the same even on direct bookings with Alamo, Thrifty , Hertz etc as described in other replies above).

Sounds like a nice trip …. good luck with the car hire booking!

Best regards,
Tim

Thank you all. A great deal of helpful advice there. Much appreciated.

I have no personal experience of using them, but a Vegas podcast I listen to is sponsored by a company called Autoslash, and in the Car Hire rental forum of FT a guy with the pseudonym Autoslash posts there and is very knowledgable about all the car hire companies. Might be worth a look at them. In continental Europe I have used rentalcars.com to find the best deal then book direct with the company itself. I also take out one of those global car hire excess policies, last time it was with carhireexcess.com and was cheaper for their worldwide coverage than it was buying a 5/6 day rental if I remember correctly. That said I never had to use their services so cannot comment what they are like if something happens. It also stopped the hard sell at key pickup time to get the rental companies insurance.

Hi SF,

I have just spent a week looking for the best ONE WAY deals as I need to travel from MIA to MCO next week. The best for me seemed to be Alamo.

Hope that helps.

S

Many companies, including Alamo, don’t charge extra fees for one-way rentals within Florida (and Nevada and California). But if you’re renting anywhere else, or driving interstate, they’ll clobber you (some more than others).

Having said that they often offer cheap deals if they need to move lots of cars from one part of the country to another (eg from the north east down to Florida at the start of the winter and back again in the spring).