US car hire tips

[Chris Triebe]

My partner and I are flying QF into LAX and Las Vegas in early October for a month and are looking for a good car rental option during the 4 weeks we are Stateside. We are looking at driving between Vegas, New Orleans and Memphis as a minimum. As we are looking at one-way rentals, are there any benefits in renting for the individual journeys, i.e. Vegas to NO then get a new rental agreement from NO to Memphis, for example? I'm a QF Club life member with bronze status due to lack of recent travelling. Does anyone have any tips?

 

[trooper]

Personally Id rent in each place and fly between them.... 1722 MILES Vegas to New Orleans... Ouch!

Most rental companies charge one way fees IME based on distance.... so that could be substantial too... shopping around would seem to be indicated! In any case Id strongly recommend renting through a consolidator (I usually end up with a European based one) ...that not only gives good rates...but includes such things as CDW which I would NOT rent in the US without...

 

[Chris Triebe]

Personally Id rent in each place and fly between them.... 1722 MILES Vegas to New Orleans... Ouch!

Most rental companies charge one way fees IME based on distance.... so that could be substantial too... shopping around would seem to be indicated! In any case Id strongly recommend renting through a consolidator (I usually end up with a European based one) ...that not only gives good rates...but includes such things as CDW which I would NOT rent in the US without...

Thank you Trooper. Good advice. Will investigate the other options.
Cheers
Chris.

 

[newmarket]

I agree with Trooper. One-way rentals will be prohibitive, however I have found that Avis non airport locations often have no or substantially reduced one-way fees compared to the airport. There isn't any easy to find the cheap location other than try different locations.

I don't think a consolidator will work in my example above. I don't remember how I booked this last but it was either Avis.com or Avis.com.au and did include LDW, etc.

Enjoy your trip. The US is great for road trips!

 

[Chris Triebe]

Thanks very much newmarket. Good advice. Will check out as many options as we can before heading off. Cheers