One way car hire in USA (LA - SF)

davetrousers

Hello all, could anyone suggest a car hire firm that doesn't charge for one way car hire? It would either be LA to San Francisco or vice versa.

I am sure I have seen this answered on here before, but after a quick search couldn't find it, sorry.

Thanks

blindman

davetrousers wrote: »

Hello all, could anyone suggest a car hire firm that doesn't charge for one way car hire? It would either be LA to San Francisco or vice versa.

I am sure I have seen this answered on here before, but after a quick search couldn't find it, sorry.

Thanks

I've always used Netflights

Thrifty rentals
There is no fee for one way rentals within the states of Florida and California, or for one way rentals between the states of California, Arizona and Nevada.

davetrousers

Thanks I'll have a look

Just tried Thrifty and I notice it adds a $300 drop-off fee.

cubegame

I've always found Netflights expensive. Just be aware that no car rental company will charge you a one way charge in California as it's against state laws.

davetrousers

Didn't realise that, thanks.

Spursman180

cubegame wrote: »

I've always found Netflights expensive. Just be aware that no car rental company will charge you a one way charge in California as it's against state laws.

Also one way hires between California, Nevada and Arizona in any order etc.

To add a point of clarity, it might sound like a stupid point but I did get asked recently and Lord knows there are some posts all over this site that make me howl at the moon. Hiring a car in California for example doesn't mean you are restricted to driving in California. You can drive where you like in the contiguous USA.

Noticed a few times cars with Hawaii license plates around Vegas, is there a tunnel or bridge somewhere I don't know about? or just a long ferry ride?

davetrousers

Does anyone have a link to to it being against state law to have one-way charges please?

TankEngine

Yip, againts California Law to charge for drop off's.

We always hire in LA and drop off in SF and never had a charge shown on the cost query.

carhire3000.com and usrentacar.co.uk are both good brokers to try.

jackieblack

We've picked up in Las Vegas (Dollar) & San Fran (Alamo) and dropped off in LA both times, no fees.

ferf1223

I've read the against state law thing before, but have never found any documentation of it and when we rented one way, LA to Vegas...our original rental agency through CH3000 DID charge a one-way fee (looking back, it was Thrifty)...we contacted CH3000 and they swapped to another that didn't (Dollar), very minimal price increase...£11 or so, vs $300 one-way fee.

So either that's a myth, or it's a new law - our rental was in 2009, so I appreciate things could have changed, but doesn't seem like it based on davetrousers post?

Edited to add - just tried a test at thrifty.com - picking up at LAX and dropping off at San Francisco airport - no one-way fee...picking up at LAX and dropping off a O'Farrell Street location in San Francisco - $170.28 one-way fee...so I'm guessing it depends on the ownership/association of the locations involved...years ago when I lived in the US - there was no one-way fee state-to-state provided that both locations fell under the same ownership (not all locations of a particular company do)...so it looks likely that this is still the case. But I very sincerely doubt that it's against CA law...happy to be proven wrong.

I think that some UK 3rd parties may build the cost into their pricing and offer no-charge one-way rentals...doesn't necessarily mean that any booking through that company will have no one-way fee.

lil.smartie

Maybe book via US site, I usually get good deals through Enterprise this way. They also include spouse for free as 2nd driver.

Kate