Renting A Car from US to Canada
 

We are flying to Spokane, Washington and then driving to Banff area, Calgary and flying back home from Edmonton. Hertz is the only car rental company that will allow you to drive a car one way from Spokane and drop off in Edmonton. The problem is that they will only rent a Ford Taurus sized car and we need a minivan or SUV. Any suggestions? Is there a Canadian car rental company we could contact? A Ford Taurus is too small and we can't figure out how to do this!

Nancy

You should appreciate that from the Rental company's point of view this is something laden with problems. The main reason for this is that American cars are calibrated in English Standards while Canadian cars are metric which means that a Canadian Rental company can't rent that car to a Canadian, (in fact a Canadian can't legally drive an American registered car in Canada and vice versa), so they have to find someone who will deadhead it back to the States. You can imagine this can be a logistical as well as expensive proposition.

I have no idea what the logic is behind Hertz only renting a Ford Taurus sized car for cross border drop off. Because of what I said above you'll find very few companies prepared to do it with any car at all. Some won't even allow their cars to be taken accross the border.

Avis let us rent anything from LasVegas to Vancouver - but not from Florida - so we had to switch in LV.

So, you might have to rent in one city and switch in another.

This Oct., we have to rent one in Va. and switch in Albany, NY in order to get to Montreal.

Good luck

Rent two Tauruses (Tauri?) in Spokane, drive to Canda, drop them off and rent a truck.

BAK

I wouldnt talk to the rental agency directly. Talk to a good travel agent. They often have connections with car rental agencies (and airlines and hotels for that matter) and can make "special arrangements" that the rental comapany wont make with an individual customer.