We need to rent a car from Scranton PA to drive to Middletown CT (for 5 days, Feb 8-13) and the prices for a one-way are outrageous. Nearly double to return it in CT vs. returning in Scranton. Any hints/clues to avoid this fee? thanks in advance!

Comparison shop at www.orbitz.com.

The problem may be that your are renting from a local franchise which owns the local cars, not a large multi city company which freely allows inventory to move around. Just because the name of the rental car co is US wide doesn't mean it's not a locally owned franchise.

i find that many times national car rental doesn't have the one way fees - at least from the cities I rent in

Sad fact of life but car rental companies charge huge drop off fees for 1 way rentals almost everyplace nowadays.

Go to Budget.com they never have drop off fees.

Many companies don't charge one one fees anymore. check with sidestep.com or orbitz. Once you find companies with reasonable prices, you might try going to the companys' own web sites to see if you can get even better rates.
As J62 said, the big guys are better at this, but sometimes a locally owned version of a "big guy" can't offer the cheap one way because they're not connected to other locations.

I'm not really good with Northeast geography, but are either of your two cities near larger cities? You might get better one-way rates renting from a larger location.

National and Budget, like some other companies don't add on a one way fee. But instead check their total price for returning to the pick up location, then compare to returning it to a different location. What you find is that there is an entirely different rate structure for the two. They don't call that a drop off fee, but it's the same thing.

Is your trip just a straight shot? You could just rent for 24 hours from Scranton to CT, then rent locally in CT for the rest of the time. Then you're only paying a one-way premium for the first day.

Also, you'll probably save big if you find a larger city than Middletown to return the car to, more competition brings lower prices. Hartford South, Meriden, New Britain maybe?

Your only choice would be to try to find corporate owned (as opposed to franchise) locations for pick up and drop off to and hope to pay less of a charge. At franchise locations you will either just not be able to do this at all or will pay an exorbitant fee. At corporate locations you will still pay additional (whether it is ouright called a fee or just characterized as a different rate for one way rental - whatever name is put on it, there is always a premium for the convenience) but possibly less. You might try calling some 1-800 lines and explain what you want, ask for the best price - probably one of the few times it would be easier than slogging around online.
Do you need the car in CT? If not, think about other transportation - e.g., into NYC (good old Martz!) and train from there, or even bus all the way.

Budget.com has decent one way rates from Scranton (AVP) to New Britain CT (N2B)

Use offer code U023812 for a 10% discount