Need Clarification about Rental Cars
 

We are traveling from Portland Maine to Halifax, Nova Scotia and wanted to take the St. John/Digby Ferry. Hoping to rent a car in Portland, dropping it off in Halifax, I am getting conflicting information about this approach. Has anyone done this route?? We are going mid-September. Thank you for your help and advice.

There is nothing wrong with your route: we do it in our own car all the time. I assume you are thinking of going up to Bangor then up Route 9 and across border at St. Stephen/Calais and up to St. John?

I am not sure what sort of drop-off fee there would likely be for that rental or whether there are problems with crossing a border in a rental car that you do not intend to return in, but I would think that a large national chain would have policies that are standard.

BTW: I should correct myself...that should be Saint John, New Brunswick (as opposed to St. John's which is a city in Newfoundland Labrador).

I have never heard of a rental car company that allows you to drop the car off in a different country than you rented it. However, if you do find one that does, please post it as many others have been interested in doing the same.

I just picked up a rental car in Montreal and dropped it off in Boston, about two weeks ago, when Air Canada abruptly canceled my flight without warning, without stating a reason, and without giving me a refund (don't get me started on what a terrible airline Air Canada is...) In this case, I happened to rent from Alamo, but the other rental car companies at the Montreal airport do this as standard practice too.

There's an extra fee for the international dropoff, and the rental offices don't always have a car that's eligible for the US-Canada border crossing, if you haven't reserved one. I think the deal is that a U.S.-registered rental car can be driven into Canada, but a Canada-registered rental car can't be driven into the U.S. But don't quote me on that last part.

Thank you to everyone that replied. I have checked with Hertz, as well as Alamo. They both allow rental in the US and drop-off in Canada. The Alamo policies page states the contrary, but I was told this scenario does not apply to US/Canada rentals.