It's been awhile since I've flown to/from SFO and rented a car. I do remember it being under a bit of construction on my last trip.

Arriving in May (Saturday) and driving to Yosemite/Napa.

Trying to decide where to spend the last night (Friday) and when to return the car; flight home is Saturday morning @11am.

a) Keep the car, spend the last night somewhere downtown via Priceline. Drive back and return car Saturday morning - assume traffic very light? Do most hotels include parking or can we expect an additional $30-$40?

b) return the car on Friday, shuttle/taxi to downtown hotel, shuttle/taxi back to SFO

c) return the car on Friday, stay at a hotel near SFO; take public transportation or taxi into town for the afternoon/evening.

Either way, I plan to Priceline the hotel (via biddingfortravel).

Any downside to pricelining the rental car for the week, as well? I've only used priceline for rental cars at smaller airports.

Priceline for the car should be fine -- all the major car rental agencies are in one car rental "center" which you get to via airtrain from the terminals.

You have plenty of time to return the car Saturday morning, just add an extra half hour or so to fill up with gas, return the car and get to the terminal.

Yes, all the downtown hotels that you would be likely to get on Priceline do charge for parking, and a hefty rate at that. For example, the Hyatt Regency charges $50-60 per night (that's just for the car, not the room!) However, there are public parking lots that are a little bit less expensive.

If you stay in the city, you could either keep/park the car (extra charges), or possibly return the car in the city (is that possible?) and take a taxi ($40-ish), shuttle ($17 per person) or BART ($8+ per person) to the airport on Saturday morning. If you won't have an extra day's car rental cost, then parking in the city and driving to the airport Saturday morning vs. returning the car in the city and taking a taxi to the airport on Saturday morning is almost a wash.

Another option to maybe consider: Since you'll have to start to SFO by about 0800 or earlier, you won't get much benefit from staying overnight in the city. (if the flight out was at 4PM then it would be totally different)

I might consider driving into SF, parking in a public lot, and exploring/having a nice dinner. Then head out to SFO late, return the car and stay in an SFO hotel. Then the hotel's shuttle to the airport in the AM.

I personally wouldn't want to hassle w/ morning commute traffic, rental car return, etc if it wasn't netting me any extra usable time in the city.

This hotel near SFO offers free parking:
http://www.lq.com/lq/properties/prop...659&propId=659
So, you could have dinner either in SF or in Burlingame (which has several really good restaurants), stay at the LaQuinta and return the car in the AM. I agree that there's no reason to return the car the night before, you'll have plenty of time, but if you prefer to, theLaQuinta has a free SFO shuttle, too.

Here are a few more. The Best Western in Millbrae is nice.

But that won't work if they want to priceline a hotel. They can likely get one of the 4 star SFO hotels (they all have shuttles) cheaper than the LaQuinta. Of course, if they keep the car/pay to park, that would negate the savings.

So book someplace like the LaQuinta and keep the car - or - priceline a hotel and return the car the night before. probably same-o/same-o cost wise.

Thank you for all the suggestions.

I think the one thing we are trying to avoid is getting stuck in any traffic in and around SF on Friday; not so much concerned with the return on early Saturday morning.

Planning to Priceline to get something reasonably priced.

I looked at LaQuinta and it is < $100/night; that is reasonable. They also offer shuttle to BART so we could drop off the car, BART to SF for late afternoon/dinner, then shuttle to the airport. Or just leave the car and BART to town and return the car in the morning with no hassle.

I'll look at the other option near SFO.

I guess I wasnt't expecting to find anything reasonably place in or near SF or SFO.

thanks all for your help.

It may be cheaper to fly in to Sacramento or even Reno for the rental car and lodging. I have even rented a car at the Fresno airport to come in to the south entrance to Yosemite.

I'm not so certain about the beginning of your trip, but

You're leaving at 11am on Saturday morning.

If it were me, I'd just return the car really late Friday night and Priceline an SFO hotel for Friday night. There are lots of really good hotels zoned SFO, you could probably get the 4* SFO Hyatt for about $60/65. Most of the airport hotels have free shuttles to the airport.

You need to be at the airport at least an hour before flight, so you have to leave the hotel no later than 9:30am, probably leaving 9am would be better, so there's not much for you to do tourist-wise Saturday morning.

The other thing is that you really don't need a car in San Francisco itself.

Also if you need a car just for Napa, then I'd suggest that you take BART into San Francisco and rent the car from an in-town SF location - it'll save you the $30+ airport fee that's tacked onto every car rental.

You don't need to return the car to the airport....Hertz, Avis, National/Alamo....all have locations downtown. They close up around 6pm however.