penguinsix

Make sure your pickup and drop off are airports. Large airports as they are often better equipped to deal with incoming or outgoing cars from far away and will not have drop off fees.

Second, try to rent through a discount rate, either a corporate or airline mileage program rate which sometimes waives drop off fees.

tonrob

In my experience the opposite has been true. Airport pick-ups have yielded additional taxes and fees and have been the worst value for money. Smaller locations downtown have given me better rates and I've managed to avoid one-way fees in this way. As always - need to shop around with car rental. Different combinations of pick up and drop off locations in the same cities can yield huge differences in price.

Bob

Must be a state thing if they allow it or not then

FinnDiego

Lots of out-of-state rental cars in San Diego too, I myself have received at least an Arizona, Idaho and Washington car from Avis here over the years. IIRC Enterprise and National were better for one-ways without a corporate deal, but have only looked at them within a state.

Mitzyboy

As far as the big companies are concerned I havent found anyone that doesnt charge it. Ive tried doing it through the Virgin Flying Club and that doesnt seem to work, so I guess its just a matter of finding out who charges the least

tonrob

Keep trying - even though it's a pain in the arse.

Example: I booked a one way with Hertz from Portland, OR to San Francisco. Each city has at least half a dozen Hertz locations, and by systematically entering the different combinations of pick-up and drop-off locations (but keeping the dates the same) I saw not only the base rental price rise and fall (sometimes quite dramatically) but I also found a combination that didn't trigger a one-way fee. I've also done this successfully with a couple of other one-way rentals since to/from different places.

Also keep a look out for other deals. Mariott used to have one where you got a $50 Hertz coupon if you bought $150 in Marriott gift cards. I stay at Marriott quite a lot anyway, so I bought a load (checking that the coupons were 'stackable' first - which they were). In this example you could also see about unloading the gift cards at a slight loss through sites like Plastic Jungle, and still come out way ahead.

When booking any kind of travel, there's always an angle.