I would like to begin our journey in Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole, Yellowstone and end at Mount Rushmore flying out of Rapid City. I found good airfares but the rental car charges are 3X-4X more expensive for this route. Does anyone have suggestions for lowering the drop off fees?

Unfortunately, there's no strategy other than driving back to SLC and dropping off your rental car there. Add up the additional cost in terms of at least one extra rental day, gas, time, etc, and you'll be able to judge whether it's worthwhile.

If you began your trip by driving first to Rapid City and then doing a slow loop back to SLC, that might be worth the trouble and minimize the time. But that's all I can think of.

Thank-you Doug. Any more thoughts on this ?

Sometimes if you go the other way, into Rapid City and out of SLC it is not as bad in terms of drop off fees because they need cars one place more than the other.

Thanks emalloy. I tried this and it did save almost $100 but still a huge difference.

ttt

Hi, don't know how long you're going to be traveling, or whether there are certain days you need to be in one place or another, but:

In situations like this it is sometimes cheaper to make two rentals. The first a one-way rental between the arrival spot and the departure spot, and then you haul ass immediately to drop the car off (in Rapid City) before renting a completely different car there for the remaining length of your trip.

This way the one-way rate hike only applies to one or two days. Note the difference between rental companies which have advertised "one-way rental fees" or "drop-off charges" and those who more subtly hike up their daily rates for each of the day's you rent.

In my example you'd want a company which advertised "NO one-way or drop-off fees".

It is a healthy 660 miles from Salt Lake to Rapid City and then another 500-ish back to Yellowstone. You'd check gas prices, the time available, and the rental car rates to figure out if this could work to any advantage.

I know that it would work wonders for lots of people taking various trips and facing the same dilemma.