I need to do a one way rental and of course it is ridiculously expensive. They have an option where you can pay in advance and maybe save up to 35% and I am willing to do it if there is a good chance I will save more, but the MAY SAVE part is what I'm concerned about.

Anyone know anything about this? TIA

you just start the booking process and see if it gives you the option to pay in advance. If it does you will see what it costs before you pay.

Thanks, that was helpful. I actually just tried it and the price went up!

Why not call Budget and inquire?

I did try calling them, and they kept giving me different numbers to call. Every time I asked them if they were transferring me to a dept. that was open on Sundays and they said yes. The last number had something to do with disabilities and they weren't open or I would have asked them for help anyway.

From where to where are you renting?

I like to use www.orbitz.com for rental car comparison shopping, then I go to the rental car co website to actually make the reservation.

I have tried just about everything, but I actually got a better rate from the Budget website compared to Orbitz or Priceline.

Oh and I am going from Baltimore to San Angelo TX.

why does it need to be budget?

It doesn't, but so far, I have gotten the best rates from them. Still, it is close to $800.00 for a weeks rental, which is a lot since I just lost my job.

you could

check www.autoeurope.com
check from downtown or suburban Baltimore instead of the airport

I've done that, but it keeps just bringing up stuff at the airport, which seems odd.

I just tried the link and even though I tried three different classes of cars, I got a 'sorry but' message until I changed the date, then I got a message saying the car had to be combined with an airline ticket or hotel. I think I may just have to bite the bullet and pay the nearly $800.00 price.

On www.budget.com I see just over $600 from suburban Baltimore location P3V picked randomly.

9525 HARFORD ROAD
PARKVILLE , MD 2123

J62 That made a $100.00 difference. I don't know why I wasn't getting that before. I tried a different location, closer to where I am at the moment, but that worked great. Thanks!

Thanks to all of you, I knew I could count on the people of Fodor's Forums to help me figure this out!

Find the number of your local airport Budget office and try calling them rather than the 800 number. Back when I used to rent lots of cars, I always got significantly better rates this way. It never hurts to join their frequent driver program, either.

Sometimes to get locations other than the airport in cities you need to google the rental company for locations. Then try from there. There are always a lot of surcharges at airports. Does Hotwire offer one way rentals?

As a general rule, going to the website of the car-rental places and plugging in dates and requirements right away ALWAYS gets you a non-discounted price. So I ALWAYS look across the top of their home page for some tab or word that says "specials" or "promotion" or some such and that usually pulls up better prices.

Do you belong to AAA? You might also check there - they have a sweetheard deal with Hertz - whom I don't like much - but it's sometimes a substantial discount.

Hertz was by far the most expensive and that was plugging in my usaa discount plus any other coupons I could find. I'm sure it doesn't help that I am dropping off the car in a town that isn't near much of anything.

rapunzll, Hertz is usually the most expensive (and not worth it) But it just happens that about 25% of the time when I go to the Carolinas AAA (not USAA) website and book directly from there(NOT on the Hertz website), I happen on a rate that's quite a bit lower than the best I can do on Budget or Dollar or Enterprise or Hertz's own website ...... Was just a suggestion.

On the Budget website, I start with the "specials" page, but I admit that trying to find a merciful one-way rate is probably hard. Let us know what you find. Good luck.