GENERAL CAR RENTAL QUESTION

[mmouse37]

I rent cars all the time but I am stumped. My daughter is in town and flying back to Colorado tomorrow. Her husband was going to drive from their hometown to Denver to pick her up (3.5 hours away) but would have to drive later today and get a hotel since her flight gets in very early and they need to get back home tomorrow evening. So, she was going to just rent car and drive home and return it to their home town which should turn out to be less expensive.

Every single car rental place says they have no rentals available tomorrow for a one way. If I book a Denver airport to Denver airport 24 hour rental they have many options available. What happens if you book a Denver to Denver rental but drop it off elsewhere (Aspen). I know they charge a drop off fee but I am wondering if there are any other fees involved. I have been to Denver several times and I know they have tons of car rental places with tons of cars and can't believe there isn't any available for one way rentals. So frustrating!! Any advice?

 

[gmi3804]

Let AutoSlash quote you a rate. One-ways are tough, but they found me a Montrose-Telluride one-way (24 hour rental), at about $110 including taxes.

 

[2Lunds]

I suspect fleet management went a bit haywire with the lack of vehicle supply post-covid, and it seems like one-way rentals are REALLY hard to come by these last couple of years.

 

[tvguy]

I suspect fleet management went a bit haywire with the lack of vehicle supply post-covid, and it seems like one-way rentals are REALLY hard to come by these last couple of years.

Other issue is whether the location you are renting from is corporate owned or a franchisee. I worked for Budget and we were a franchisee which means WE owned our fleet. If one of our cars got dropped off in another city, we didn't make any money off it until we went and got it and brought it back. And we charged a hefty drop charge to discourage the practice. We had two retired guys we'd call to retrieve cars that were dropped.
A friends son is in the military and he flew home on leave and he needed a one way rental in a smaller community and his only option was to rent a Uhaul truck, because Uhaul owns all their vehicles and they don't care where you drop off the rental.

 

[LouChris]

Another problem you are going to have is Taylor Swift has a concert this weekend in Denver 7-14 thru 7-16. You might wonder what that has to do with rental cars but let me explain.

My 22yr old dd is a Swiftie as her fans are called. When a Taylor Swift concert comes to a city it will typically cause almost every hotel room in the city to be sold out and people will fly in from all over to attend the concert.

We drove from Illinois to Nashville to attend the concert their and my daughter's best friend flew in from Texas to attend. The airport was JAMMED packed on Friday!!!

We had sense to book our hotel rooms before tickets went on sale (we had rooms that we could cancel without a fee) and room prices triple and were going for up to a 1000 a night at the time of the concert and you couldn't find a room!.

So long story short that is why Denver has no one way car rentals available the Swifties have them rented out I would wager.

 

[2Lunds]

Other issue is whether the location you are renting from is corporate owned or a franchisee. I worked for Budget and we were a franchisee which means WE owned our fleet. If one of our cars got dropped off in another city, we didn't make any money off it until we went and got it and brought it back. And we charged a hefty drop charge to discourage the practice. We had two retired guys we'd call to retrieve cars that were dropped.
A friends son is in the military and he flew home on leave and he needed a one way rental in a smaller community and his only option was to rent a Uhaul truck, because Uhaul owns all their vehicles and they don't care where you drop off the rental.

Excellent point re: franchise

 

[mjkacmom]

Another problem you are going to have is Taylor Swift has a concert this weekend in Denver 7-14 thru 7-16. You might wonder what that has to do with rental cars but let me explain.

My 22yr old dd is a Swiftie as her fans are called. When a Taylor Swift concert comes to a city it will typically cause almost every hotel room in the city to be sold out and people will fly in from all over to attend the concert.

We drove from Illinois to Nashville to attend the concert their and my daughter's best friend flew in from Texas to attend. The airport was JAMMED packed on Friday!!!

We had sense to book our hotel rooms before tickets went on sale (we had rooms that we could cancel without a fee) and room prices triple and were going for up to a 1000 a night at the time of the concert and you couldn't find a room!.

So long story short that is why Denver has no one way car rentals available the Swifties have them rented out I would wager.

Good friends of ours live 2 hours south, I got a call from them from the road when they were heading up my way to say goodbye to a loved one in hospice. The were struggling finding a hotel and asked if they could stay here, they were unaware that Taylor swift was playing that weekend at MetLife stadium, 6 miles away. I should’ve rented out my house!

 

[sam_gordon]

I rent cars all the time but I am stumped. My daughter is in town and flying back to Colorado tomorrow. Her husband was going to drive from their hometown to Denver to pick her up (3.5 hours away) but would have to drive later today and get a hotel since her flight gets in very early and they need to get back home tomorrow evening. So, she was going to just rent car and drive home and return it to their home town which should turn out to be less expensive.

Every single car rental place says they have no rentals available tomorrow for a one way. If I book a Denver airport to Denver airport 24 hour rental they have many options available. What happens if you book a Denver to Denver rental but drop it off elsewhere (Aspen). I know they charge a drop off fee but I am wondering if there are any other fees involved. I have been to Denver several times and I know they have tons of car rental places with tons of cars and can't believe there isn't any available for one way rentals. So frustrating!! Any advice?

I've had this happen before... plenty of cars available for same return, nothing available for one way (and this was when the difference was <60 minutes between the sites).

You COULD reserve the rental as same return, then once you pick it up, contact the company and say your plans have changed and you want to drop it off at another location. Expect the charge to go WAY up. What the fees are called really doesn't matter.

 

[jimmymc]

Some places will have a one way or non-original drop off fee, which I've seen get to several hundreds of dollars.

 

[mmouse37]

Thank you both!!

 

[monsterkitty]

I would suspect that there are very few people who would do a one-way rental from Aspen to Denver, therefore it wouldn't be cost effective for a rental agency to have DEN to Aspen available as a one-way.

A suggestion would be to see if she can take one of the shuttles from DEN to Aspen.

 

[_19disnA]

Shuttle is probably a better idea then a 1-way rental. I would imagine shuttles run during peak ski season but not sure if they do that year-round. I wouldn't rent it as a 'return to same location' and then suddenly decide to drop the car elsewhere without letting them know in advance. Rental company would likely charge a hefty added fee since that car is now elsewhere and they might have to send someone to get it back into their fleet.

 

[monsterkitty]

Shuttle is probably a better idea then a 1-way rental. I would imagine shuttles run during peak ski season but not sure if they do that year-round. I wouldn't rent it as a 'return to same location' and then suddenly decide to drop the car elsewhere without letting them know in advance. Rental company would likely charge a hefty added fee since that car is now elsewhere and they might have to send someone to get it back into their fleet.

Aspen is a year-round destination these days. There should be no problem getting a shuttle.

 

[gmi3804]

It just occurred to me. Are you searching to pick up at Denver airport and return to the Aspen airport? Returning to in-town locations is almost always prohibitively expensive.

 

[Luv Bunnies]

It just occurred to me. Are you searching to pick up at Denver airport and return to the Aspen airport? Returning to in-town locations is almost always prohibitively expensive.

I noticed that too. We set up a trip during which we will be picking up a car in Washington D.C. and returning it in Pittsburgh. I was searching rental locations close to our hotel in D.C. since we won't need the car until several days into our trip. Picking up from the neighborhood locations caused the price to nearly double. If we Uber back to the airport and pick up a rental there, the price was way more reasonable.

 

[Robbie Cottam]

One way rentals in CO have been cost prohibitive, if available at all…
‘Drop fees are as much as 150 dollars each way,

simply put the rental car companies have cars but don’t have the staff to go get them…

 

[DLgal]

It's probably cheaper for the husband to get a hotel for the night just outside the airport. One way rentals are always more expensive than renting and returning to the same location.

 

[tvguy]

One way rentals in CO have been cost prohibitive, if available at all…
‘Drop fees are as my as 150 dollars each way,

simple put the rental car companies have cars but don’t have the staff to go get them…

That's MUCH lower than I expected. I worked at Budget in 1979 and our one way drop fee was $125 then.

 

[monsterkitty]

I rent cars all the time but I am stumped. My daughter is in town and flying back to Colorado tomorrow. Her husband was going to drive from their hometown to Denver to pick her up (3.5 hours away) but would have to drive later today and get a hotel since her flight gets in very early and they need to get back home tomorrow evening. So, she was going to just rent car and drive home and return it to their home town which should turn out to be less expensive.

Every single car rental place says they have no rentals available tomorrow for a one way. If I book a Denver airport to Denver airport 24 hour rental they have many options available. What happens if you book a Denver to Denver rental but drop it off elsewhere (Aspen). I know they charge a drop off fee but I am wondering if there are any other fees involved. I have been to Denver several times and I know they have tons of car rental places with tons of cars and can't believe there isn't any available for one way rentals. So frustrating!! Any advice?

EPIC MOUNTAIN EXPRESS isn't doing an Aspen/Glenwood route right now (probably because of Glenwood Canyon), but they will get your DD to the Riverfront Westin in Beaver Creek for $89. Her DH could pick her up there.

 

[EACarlson]

On July 2nd I was at ORD and my flight was delayed coming home from a business trip. Looked to book a one way from ORD to ATW, about 150 miles, the only options I could find were $1,000. Two of the three majors had nothing. If you were to book a roundtrip rental, they could refuse to allow you to make it a one way and require you to bring it back to DEN or get charged each day.