One-way car rental: Boston to NYC -- SO EXPENSIVE! please help...
 

Any advice or tips??

The cheapest rate I can find averages $120 per day (incl taxes) for a 4 day COMPACT rental -- picking up at Logan on a thursday morning, dropping off at JFK on sunday evening.

Priceline won't let me bid.
Coupons don't seem to apply to one-way.

This just seems like highway robbery -- no pun intended.

Any advice or tips will be greatly appreciated!!

Thanks,
dina

I don't have enough info on how you plan to use the car (leisurely trip between Boston and NYC/whatever), but this suggestion might help. Take megabus from Boston to NYC, and rent a car in NYC.

Those are standard rates. Unlike other parts of the country where car rentals are dirt cheap, prices in the NE generally run over $100 per day for anything except rent-a-wreck (not recommended). And dropping off in another city always costs more.

The question is - do you really need a car? If you want to see the countryside/small towns between Boston and NYC a car makes sense. If you just want to get from Boston to NYC the train is a much better option. And there are also low costs buses.

Do you belong to AAA? Go to their page (as opposed to claiming a AAA discount on a car-rental site) and see if you can do any better booking directly through them.

But we do need to know what you're thinking re: the use of this car - dates, your itinerary, etc.

If it were me, I'd try to pic up the car somewhere after Logan or drop it off somewhere short of JFK (Providence, Hartford, New Haven, etc.) and take alternative transport -- one-way rentals airport-to-airport are almost always outrageously expensive. You might find that train or bus are cheaper than a day's rental.

Thanks so much for your responses!

We are planning to see some colleges in the area, so renting a car is our only option.

I was able to get frequent flyer mile tickets with open jaw, so i grabbed them not realizing the car rental would be so expensive!

HKP -- do you have any advice on how to get to Providence from Logan by train or bus? Our first stop could be Brown. Maybe it will be cheaper to rent there?

Or even recommendations closer to Logan as to where to rent? Should we cab INTO boston to get a rental?

Our return will have to be at JFK, because we have limited time getting to our flight.

Thanks again.
I really appreciate your help!

dina

Unfortunately, we don't belong to AAA, but that got me to thinking that maybe Costco would have a deal?

Bostonians will have to hone the details for you, but I believe the Silver Line bus will take you from Logan to South Station where you can get a train to Providence. (There may also be bus service directly from Logan to Providence but I don't know as much about that.)

All you can do is put in some time on line to compare rates -- e.g., there may well be a downtown Providence office for some of the car rental agencies to serve students, as well as at the Providence airport.

(btw: I would be less eager to try to go into Boston to find a rental car - you'll spend all day trying to find it -- or at least I would in your situation.)

What week are you talking about? How far ahead are we now?

An afterthought - and NY'ers will have the details here - but depending on time of day, I'm not sure you can count on getting through traffic quickly enough to make returning the car at JFK a better bet than public transport. What is your last stop before your flight?

I had a similar issue last year, when I just wanted to drive from Western MA to Boston in a 1-way rental. The drop off charge was outrageous. unfortunately that seems to be the way it is. You should definitely shop around, but I have a suspicion you won't do enough better to make it worth the trouble of getting mass transit to somewhere else.

I think being a weekend is also part of your problem. Tons of those "city dwellers" are carless and rent a car on the weekend. We've rented one way a couple times between Boston and New York and it was amazingly affordable -- but always with a pickup on Mon or Tues and a drop off on Friday.

June 25-28, so it's still far enough away that maybe rates will drop... what do you think??

neopatrick -- maybe you're right about the wknd rates. bummer.

HKP:
we will be leaving Wesleyan Univ (middletown, connecticut) at 2pm to make a 6:30 flight at JFK

thanks again, everyone, for trying to help...

Just a suggestion but many of the airlines do allow redemption of miles for car rental. Not sure if it's possible with one-way rental, but you may want to call and check with your airline (that is, if you still have some miles in your account).

Good luck!

There is a commuter rail that leaves from both South Station and Back Bay station in Boston and goes to Providence, the trip is about an hour. If the weather is nice, you can walk to Brown from the train station, it's about 20-30 min. If the weather isn't great, there's always cabs at the station and the cab ride will only be about $5-$7.

I'm not sure if there's a train stop near Wesleyan, you'd have to check on that but, if so, you can take the Acela or Amtrak directly from Providence.

thanks again, everyone.

aafrequentflyer... i'm very intrigued by your idea of using miles for a car rental. i do have some left, but not sure where to begin.
will start checking out that option, but let me know if you have any tips...

I agree that you should just take the Commuter Rail from South Station to Providence; you can get the schedule at www.mbta.com . The "Silver Line" is actually a bus that goes around the terminals and then to South Station.

Even if it's not cheaper to rent the car one-way from Providence, you'll at least save a full day of rental fees.

If you tell us your entire schedule (e.g., what's between Brown and Wesleyan), we might have more suggestions for public transit.

I'll be a little bit nervous to leave Middletown, CT at 2pm and have to return a rental car at JFK and fly out there at 6:30pm.

I definitely don't like the time frame for leaving Connecticut and getting to JFK. If you are going to do that, I might suggest the ferry from Conn to Long Island to avoid traffic. Even that though is not so great because if you ferry to Pt Jeff, you still have at least an hour and possibly longer to get JFK. Is it possible to leave earlier?

Googlemaps times the drive at 2 hrs 5 min.

I figured even if we got there at 4:30, took 30 min to return the car, we'd still be at the terminal by 5.

Is that really unrealistic?
Now I have something else to worry about...

Costco DOES have good deals on cars. Go to their website and you can link to the rental companies and plug in the codes that Costco provides.

I just played with your dates on kayak.com, then Alamo/national. Alamo didn't have cars downtown, but referred me to National. Their non- airport location is right next to the Boston Aquarium, so reachable by subway from Logan.
To go Logan-JFK was $556 (economy size)- $576 Midsize
To go Aquarium- JFK was $359 (economy) -$399 midsize

Alamo has a costco discount if you call them, but sometime the web specials are cheaper.

Good luck.