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Rental car drop-off fee turnoff

On The Spot by L.A. Times Travel editor Catharine Hamm

Question: What is the reason for a drop-off charge for a rental car? Sometimes it is assessed, and other times it is not. In October, for instance, I rented a car in Phoenix with a California license plate, and I dropped it off at LAX. The fee was $200. Why?

– George Jones, Inglewood

Answer: Because you have to pay for convenience.

That’s not to say it’s right, nor is it to say that it should always be the consumer’s lot in life, but increasingly, it is. You want to change your airline ticket because your plans change? You pay for it. You need to cancel a hotel reservation? Fork over a fee. You want to change the date of your cruise? Good luck with that.

For consumers, it’s a question of who holds the cards. (Answer: Not you.) But for companies, it’s often a question of managing its assets. An empty seat, bed or car because of your issue shouldn’t be their issue.

“Most rental car companies transport the cars back to their original location after use, and they therefore need to pass on the expense to the renter,” said Richard Weede, vice president for communications for Rentacarnow.com, which helps consumers find the best rate.

Using the IRS’ 2009 mileage allowance rate for business miles (55 cents a mile), if it’s 370 miles from Phoenix to Los Angeles, you would be allowed $148.50. Add the time for somebody to make the drive, and you can easily see where the $200 fee comes from.

But here’s the confusing part: You might not get charged a rental car drop-off fee, or you might find a lower fee at another agency. It depends on several factors. For one thing, your base rental rate might be higher, incorporating the extra fee. For another, the location to which you’re returning the car may meet the company’s needs. And if you’re a member of the “elite” car rental club, you may avoid the fee altogether.

It’s a little bit like the airfare roulette we’ve all become accustomed to playing. It always depends on something else besides your goodness as a human being.

“It always pays to shop around before renting and always getting confirmation of any drop-off charges before picking up the rental car,” said Carol Margolis, a self-described road warrior for the last 24 years and founder of Smartwomentravelers .com.

“If the charges seem too high for the city a person is traveling to, call the agency and ask them what they would do in your situation . . . to get the best one-way rental without a drop-off charge. Ask, ask, ask.”

And what’s the worst the agency can say? Go rent somewhere else? In these economic times, maybe you still do have a card or two up your sleeve.

Have a travel dilemma? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every letter.

[Graphic: Scott Garrett / For The Times]

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 15, 2009 at 10:07 am by Catharine Hamm and is filed under Angry Traveler, On The Spot. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.

2 Comments on “Rental car drop-off fee turnoff”

Bob Foolery Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
If you want to drop-off in another city, start shopping with the corporate-owned companies. It’s not always easy to figure that out though, a major company can be a franchise, in which case, the operator has to get his car back within the franchise operation, and will charge a fee to get the vehicle back in play.
Rental Car Expert Says:
November 18th, 2009 at 9:07 pm
The article is correct when it says “…for companies, it’s often a question of managing its assets.” However, it fails to explain why.

One-way or drop-off fees are a simple result of supply and demand. If the rental car company has low supply and high demand, they use the fees to intentionally discourage one-way (outbound) traffic. They lose the opportunity to re-rent the car and thus lose the opportunity to make any future profit on it. In places with high snowbird traffic like Florida and Arizona, you’ll see an annual spike in prices in the southern migration and a large drop in prices (sometimes one ways out of Florida get as low as $1/day during this season) because the supply is too high and the demand is too low.

Mr. Weede was obviously smoking a bi-product of his name. I would challenge anyone to go to their nearest rental car lot and count the number of local license plates. It will almost always be less than 50% of the fleet on the ground. If the rental car companies send the cars back to the originating branch/location how do these out-of-state vehicles end up all over the country? Please tell us Mr. Weede…