rental cars
 

I have relatives traveling between Oregon and California this spring.
Their trip is starting in Portland, Oregon. Their original thought was to rent a car in Oregon, drive
down to Yosemite, and drop off the car in Sacramento on their way home.
For some reason, the rental companies in Oregon will not allow that. Does anyone happen to know
what that reason would be?
Thanks!

When I checked online at Hertz I was able to book a car from PDX to SMF no problem. Ditto for National. Perhaps they are looking at a local franchise (i.e. Enterprise) that has a locally owned fleet that they do not allow one-way rentals for.

Avis and other companies allow this from Portland airport or other locations in Portland. I'm not sure where you got the idea that it wasn't allowed.

Hmmmm.... I'll have to get more details from my relatives about which rental car company told them this. They sounded like they'd checked around. But maybe not.

Thank you so much!

When researching our trip to Portland I came upon an interesting tidbit. It seems there is a 10% airport charge for renting cars from the airport locations. With them already having to pay for a 1-way drop off (which we have found is usually more than drop off where you rented from), that might add up. Just an FYI.

Rental car companies have to abide by the laws of the state where they rent cars. When you take a car from one state to another, it has to be compliant with the new state's regulations to be rented or it has to be driven back to the state it originated in, which can be a considerable cost to the rental company. California has some of the toughest regulations on car emissions in the US, so any rental car going into the state to be re-rented has to meet those regulations. If the rental company does not have a car in their fleet that meets the California regulations, they may just refuse to rent to you unless it is a round trip.

AntiaG -- the simple solution to avoid the 10% is to pony up the $1.50 (and the time) to ride MAX into town from the airport, and pick up the car there.

Right - our plan is to wait and rent one downtown.

I have worked several times at renting a car in either Portland or Seattle and dropping in California. In every case and with every company it seemed it would cost at least a couple hundred dollars more than returning to the pick up spot. This isn't merely a drop off charge, but a totally different rate structure for one way rentals. In each case I made other plans -- usually flying into Sacramento to get the car and driving up (not too bad since we are usually going to Ashland, OR., just over the CA border).

Also be aware that when you look at these one way rentals online, they often do NOT include the drop charge. Be sure to read the fine print or call and confirm a bottom line price.

And Seattle had the same thing as discussed above with airport charges. We saved $350 for a two week rental -- dropping in Medford, Oregon, by going into downtown Seattle instead of picking the car up at the airport -- and no I am not exaggerating.

Thank you, everyone! I'll forward the info onto my relatives.