one way car rental : need help

[deallover]

Hi,

I would like to rent a car in Las Vegas (LAS) on 7/17/05 8pm and then return it on July 21 in Orange County, California (SNA) airport 6:00am.

I checked all the travel sites and every car rental company applies $80 or more dro poff fee cuz the return airport is not the same.

Cheapest I found is $199.00 for Compact car from Thirfty.

Any suggestion as to how can I make such rental any cheaper?

Or how can I avoid the drop of fee?

Thanks.

Neil

[thereuare]

You're going to have to pay a large fee on just about any one-way rental... it's standard practive in the industry as it compensates the departing location for the loss of the car until they can get a driver returning it in the opposite direction.

Remember this board is an affiliate of THRIFTY.

[mochabowler]

We rented a car from BUR to LAS last year for $50 from National and then LAS to BUR for $70. Coming home, they upgraded us from a full size to a mini-van from Alamo. We'd gotten such a great deal on our flight out of LAS, that we opted to rent the cars rather than drive and park our car for a week. Our deals were only 1 day each, but you might want to try National/Alamo. It seems odd that the costs are so different, as there are a LOT of Europeans that fly into LA and drive to Vegas or fly into Vegas and drive through Death Valley on their way to LA. There are always cars waiting to go back the other way.

[sage]

Budget usually does not have a drop fee, although occasionally I've noticed they instead charge a slightly higher rate on one-ways. At end of July I'm getting a Reno to San Francisco one-way premium car for a week at $184 base rate, $240 after taxes - a great deal I think (except for today's gas prices).