One way car hire between San Francisco and Seattle

[melbanham]

Anyone with any experience of one way car hire between states in USA, especially between California and Washington?

Which companies seem to offer best deal and which are most up front with their costs? Seems to be Hertz at present. Thanks.

[buildersmate]

Done this recently between Washington State and Wyoming. No problem - all the big companies do it - you just have to pay a one-way fixed fee.
The contract is established in the State where you start the hire (and the taxes are driven at that State's rates).
I used National - which was the cheapest I could negotiate. The one-way fee was $199, I think.

[Hymie]

I've found the prices of this outfit hard to beat

http://www.carhiredirect.co.uk/

I found a weeks car hire (SF to Seattle) for �82.

Many US car hire companies don't make a one way charge within the same State (I know, you are not travelling within a State).

Whoever you hire from - make sure you are given the full price, including all insurance you need.

Last time I was the the States, I was offered additional breakdown cover. I was shocked that a hire car company would not offer breakdown cover as standard. When pressed, the agent admitted this was for things like me locking myself out of the car (not for it breaking down).

[melbanham]

Thanks. That's useful stuff. I'll check things out a little more.

[Andyvon]

Hi melbanham,

I spent three months in the US in 1991 and as Inapickle says the drop off fees are - or were - enormous. We hired a car from Alamo in Boston with the pipe dream of spending the time driving across the US to San Fransisco or wherever we turned up. The Boston depot told us they would have to charge us a 'very large four figure sum' as we would have to pay for an Alamo driver to drive the car all the way across the US back to Boston. It was also obvious they didn't like the idea of their car disappearing across the country like that. We thought they wouldn't care as it was the same firm but it seems each depot has it's own cars.

We didn't get a price as we decided against it. In the end we drove 3000+ miles touring the east coast of the US and Canada and then returning the car to Boston.

I hope they have dropped the one way fee but I can't see why. They still have to return the car to the original depot if you don't. I should check carefully as it was very expensive to do that.

[Andyvon]

I spelt San Francisco wrongly there! Sorry - it's late!