Brit In TN

I am planning a drive/fly vacation for June and am looking to hire a car in East TN with the intention of dropping it off a week or so later in Los Angeles. I've done the obvious searches ie. car hire companies, Expedia etc and keep coming up against large drop off fee on top of the hire charges.
I understand why this would be required.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any experience in hiring a car in one state and dropping it off in another without being charged the proverbial arm and leg?
Thanks.

avanutria

Try Budget. For a flat fee of $100 (It may have come through as 50 pounds since we hired from the UK site for insurance coverage) they let us pickup in Washington and drop off in Oregon a few weeks later. They also let us return it early (when we bought a car, after our move) and refunded the equivalent rental charges for the unused time.

Brit In TN

just called their UK office a minute ago and was quoted a $1,000 (600GBP) one way drop off fee on top of the (reasonable) hire charge. This seems to be about standard so far.
Thanks for the suggestion though.

avanutria

Does the same come up if you get a quote through their UK website?

Brit In TN

I tried the UK website first but the type of vehicle I am looking for (minivan) wasn't listed as an option. So I called them in the UK.

Bob

If you've got AA membership, they have a reciprocal deal with AAA which gets a discount with Enterprise I think, might be Hertz, but that might help?

Generally not cheap though.

tonrob

Any "non-standard" rental vehicle's going to be a bugger for trying to avoid drop fees.

In general though: note that absolutely anything variable you change in the booking has the potential to drastically impact the rental cost, including drop fees.

Try every combination of pick up and drop off locations available in the respective cities you're looking at. Even include nearby neighbouring cities if possible. Once you've found the cheapest option - assuming the cost is palatable to you - then Google for current discount codes for that company and try putting these in one at a time. Note that some discount codes, AAA included, can actually push the price up - and some codes when stacked can cancel each other out.

Can rental is the biggest pain in the arse when trying to shop for the best deal - but persistence often pays off. I've got rid off $500 drop fees and saved more besides by mucking about switching locations etc. as per the above so it can be worth it if you put the time in.

Afterthought: Sometimes hotel chains do deals whereby you buy their gift cards and they'll chuck in car rental vouchers. If you think you can shift the gift cards on your travels then this can be worth it. I managed to get quite a lot of Hertz vouchers (probably about $400 worth) when buying Marriott GCs a couple of times.