Ways to avoid a one-way car rental "drop off fee"?

March 6, 2016 8:33 AM

I need to drive a rental car one way from Memphis to Atlanta and want to know if there's a way to avoid the hefty "drop off fee" that I wasn't aware I'd have to pay.

I already have the two one way plane tickets, so I'm committed. After an event in Memphis, I have to drive a rental car from Memphis to Atlanta, and did not know there was a "drop off fee" that will force the cost up to 4 times as much as I thought it would be. I need a car for the weekend prior so I have to have a car regardless, but is there a way to avoid this fee or lower the cost of the car rental? Yes, I've checked into taking a train, but I'm looking for ways to lower the rental car cost, or other creative solutions. Thanks!

posted by FlyByDay to Travel & Transportation around Suwanee, GA (14 answers total)

Have you asked around the various rental companies? I've done this a bunch and have never avoided the extra fee to drop a car off somewhere else, but some companies charge like 4x as much as the others so I'd shop around if I were you (if you aren't already committed).
posted by FireFountain at 8:42 AM on March 6, 2016

Really basic suggestion: have you shopped around? In past experiences with this the fees can vary a lot by rental company. Also mess around with dropoff location in kayak or something, it can vary by airport vs. other as well.
posted by advil at 8:43 AM on March 6, 2016

The only way I've found was for the rental car centre at the collection airport to run out of cars - as in all rental companies had run out due to a lot of delayed drop offs it being a holiday weekend with glorious weather. As a result I had to take a taxi to my hotel and when I returned the following day to pick up a vehicle I was in a strong position to ask to have the fee dropped and the person I was dealing with was keen enough to restore some goodwill and scrapped the fee.
posted by koahiatamadl at 8:44 AM on March 6, 2016

Flying from Memphis to Atlanta has to be cheap. Why not just rent a car in Atlanta after flying there, or have the car in Memphis, turn it in and fly to Atlanta?
posted by Oyéah at 9:10 AM on March 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

Can you change the Atlanta flight? Or would discarding the ticketing and buying a completely new ticket from Memphis to your final destination be cheaper?

If not, can you ditch the car in Memphis then fly to Atlanta on Tuesday or Thursday? If so then you can fly Frontier Airlines non-stop, which is $50 (or under).

Flights for random days in the next couple of months are $300 direct on Delta, or $150ish with a change on American. Or you can take the Greyhound for $25.
posted by caek at 9:19 AM on March 6, 2016

Do you know someone (whom you trust) in Atlanta who'd be happy to drive the car back to Memphis for you in exchange for a free one-way trip to Memphis? In my experience you can add an additional driver part way through the trip, if you go to a rental location with them and their license.

Other than that, I don't think it's possible. I've tended to find the lowest one-way fees on Travelocity. If it's not low enough then you might need a separate car rental in each city and a bus/plane in between. I think you might have to choose between cheap and convenient in this case.
posted by Salamandrous at 9:47 AM on March 6, 2016

I had to do this recently and it turned out that by being a member of the rewards program with that rental company, it was much less expensive (though still a pretty big charge). In some cases it's pretty easy to get to onto one of the mid-level status tiers even if you haven't rented from the company before -- one of my credit cards comes with that perk, for example.
posted by karbonokapi at 10:17 AM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

I have no clue, but would maybe a U-Haul moving van / small truck be cheaper than the rental car. One-way trips are sorta their thing.
posted by zengargoyle at 1:13 PM on March 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

If you want to try a somewhat-risky bet, try searching around the forums at FlyerTalk -- you can often find reports of people avoiding one-way drop-off fees by using an affiliation code for a local university or something. The risk you run is that you may be asked to provide evidence of your affiliation (assuming you don't have any), and end up paying a lot more. It also may be considered somewhat unethical to claim an affiliation that doesn't apply to you. But rental car companies really are scumbags and will screw you over any chance they get, so I wouldn't judge you, not one bit.
posted by tybstar at 2:31 PM on March 6, 2016

You could call the various rental companies in Memphis and see if they have any Atlanta cars that need to be returned.
posted by monotreme at 2:32 PM on March 6, 2016

Shop around and don't feel guilty if you cancel your existing "reservation."

Jerry Seinfeld has a bit about rental car reservations (the shocking truth: they don't actually 'reserve' a car for you) and that's good to keep in mind. In fact, for a couple years I would always make 2 reservations at once (after getting burned badly by some el-cheapo companies who didn't have cars for me when I showed up). But that's another story.

My personal trick for best reservation prices are (A) Costco.com and (B) Southwest.com - you can add in some discounts such as AAA to see if you get better prices, and as others have noted sometimes these will drop the one-way charge substantially.
posted by soylent00FF00 at 5:48 PM on March 6, 2016

It looks like if you pick up the car across the border in Mississipi instead of Tennessee, it might save you a lot of money (almost $200 on the random dates that I tried it out on).
posted by metahawk at 10:16 PM on March 6, 2016

Are you picking up and dropping off at the airport in both cities? Although doing that can increase the price on a regular rental, it can reduce the price on a one-way. Give us specific days and we can try to find you a deal.
posted by soelo at 12:49 PM on March 7, 2016

Response by poster: So many great ideas, all! My dates are: getting into Memphis 4/22 afternoon (picking up at airport) and can probably ditch the car in Atlanta on Sunday, the 24th anywhere. Any other suggestions would be appreciated!
posted by FlyByDay at 6:05 PM on March 7, 2016