I am taking 90 days to travel across America this summer. I am finding that car hire through the major suppliers e.g. Hertz is very expensive. Does anyone have any ideas regarding more affordable car hire or other ways of renting a car for long periods of time? I am getting quotes upwards of £2500 as i am picking up in Boston and dropping of in LA (they have extortionate drop off fees). Thanks!

Actually, I don't think you will get much of a deal from anyone. A ninety-day rental, out-of-state dropoff, UK driver....

Have you investigated coming to the US, buying a used car in Boston, then selling it in LA at the end of your trip? The sticking point will be insurance, of course, but at least you'll recoup some of the cost at the end, since the main depreciation on the car will have happened two minutes after it was sold as a new car.

Oh, and thanks for the heads-up that another tourist will be tooling around LA this summer. Just what this weary daily commuter needs...!

Try Rent-a-Wreck. They rent good quality used cars, (not actual wrecks).
On their website, month's rental for a compact out of NYC was about $750, which works out to around 425 pounds.

There are extra charges for traveling, say, more than 2 states away from your pickup spot (company policies vary), and for remote drop-off. You might be better off with a sequence of shorter-distance short-term rentals.

Have you tried travelocity and orbtiz to see what rates they have? Or one of the budget renters like Enterprise?

Another option is to bid on Priceline - unless you care which company you use.

Unfortunately, since you're from the UK and your credit cards don;t cover insurance the extras you need to pay really add up - and I don;t know any way to avoid the drop-off charge.

And to tell you the truth that dosn;t sound so bad - out of NYC few cars are less than $100 per day - which for you would be $9000 (or almost 5,000 pounds) plus drop off.

Cannot reco rent-a-wreck - most of them actually are. A friend of mine did this while waiting for a new car when hers was totaled - and she got two cars that were disasters - wouldn't start, overheated etc. She ended up going to a real company despite the cost.

Interesting. I've never had a problem. Is this a NY friend?

This comes up all the time on anoTTher board.

Foreign residents buying and selling cars (legally) in the US is nigh on impossible nowadays, due to residency requirements for drivers licenses, drivers licenses being a requirement for insurance, insurance being a requirement for registration, registration being a requirement for tabs....

Also it doesn't seem to be widely appreciated that rental rates are different accoring to the renter's nationality. The same car rented by an American in Florida will be more expensive if rented by a foreign national. Actuarial juju and all that.

For the OP, it sometimes works out that you'll do better by limiting your rentals to shorter periods, even if they're one-way. In other words, rent in Boston for a month, drop in Chicago. Rent a second month, drop in Texas, etc. The sum may be less than the one-time rental rate.

The other thing that will definitely save money is to set up a series of return rentals - Northeast loop, midwest loop, west coast loop, etc., using one-way rentals for very short times (or better, using planes) to get from one rental point to another.

With one-way rentals, some companies will charge a high "drop fee" while others will just charge a very high base rate (per day, per week) that applies throughout the rental period. If you only use one-ways for a few days at a time, you'll still get that high daily rate, but it will be for fewer days, followed by cheaper return rates for ths subsequent rental.

Check it out.

For a long-term rental, it may be worth NOT picking the car up at the airport. There are sometimes significant extra taxes/fees that are added on. Maybe even picking the car up in New Hampshire, a few miles away, would be worth considering. You might want to check Enterprise, in addition to Hertz, Avis, Dollar, Alamo etc.

Drop-off charges vary widely depending on location, direction, time-of-year etc. One company may have a surplus of cars in a region, and be happy to have them moved elsewhere, while another is in the opposite situation.

I'm not aware of lease options in the US, the way some manufacturers do in France (I think those are more driven by tax factors), but you could investigate that option.

were you planning on driving all across the country? Or more regional touring w/ long distance drives in between?

Unless you have an urge to drive the whole of the country I'd do a series of rentals w/ low cost flights in between.

i.e. Rent a car to drive around New England for a couple of weeks or whatever, turn in the car, fly to Florida and pick up another car. Fly to Chicago, see the city car-less then pick up a car for touring the midwest. Fly to the Northwest and do the same. Whatever regions you wanted to visit.

Jet Blue and Southwest are very good low cost airlines - sort of EasyJet/Ryan Air w/o the baggage limitations and w/ nicer flight crews . . . . .

E-mail some rental car companies and see if they do short-term leasing. "Lease" is the word you are looking for. That usually implies longer times for less money.

It would be better to buy one off a used car lot, but that sounds very hard if you don't live here. Are there any friends or relatives here that would let you buy the car in their name and get insurance arranged for you?

Cappxxx -

No a Westchester friend - not Manhattan - don;t even know if there is one in Manhattan.

Have you considered renting cars at two, three, or more "hub" cities to which you also return the cars. For instance, rent a car in LA to tour the West Coast and South West and rent a car in NYC to tour the East Coast.

There are cities where you won't want a car: NYC, Chicago, and San Francisco, for instance.

Hi
I too am travelling around America for 90 days this summer. I am chosing to go everywhere by Greyhound - is this an option for you?
Nina

I would recommend the bus as an absolute last resort. I would cancel the trip before I took the bus. But maybe taking Amtrak (the train) some might help.

I have heard through a cyber friend from England on another board that rentals for him are very expensive due to insurance rates--and even something like Rent a Wreck will not save on it.

I think part of the problem is that insurance rates for anyone from a country where driving is on the "wrong" side of the road are considered to be more likely to have accidents - so insurance is higher. Also - the company has no way of checking your driving record - so they can;t assume it's good and have to allow for bad drivers.

Several circuits with cheap flights in between might make sense for one person - by avoiding the drop off charge - but for 2 or more - it probably wouldn;t help.

And frankly I would cancel the trip before using either Greyhound or Amtrak.

Aren't there bargain multi-leg flight specials available to people from outside the US? Using that you could see a lot of cities - and perhaps just rent a car once or twice out west where it's really needed and do one circuit.