Hello all fodorites, I might be flying into LAS and plan on doing a Cali,Neva,and Grand Canyon trip for 2 weeks. Flying in on Dec 22. And returning 2 weeks later on Jan 5. We plan on renting a car for 2 or 3 days and travelling to GC first. So what i plan to do...

Rental 1: Dec 23-24/25: Pick up minivan from Vegas drive it to Grand Canyon. Return it to Vegas.

Rental 2: Dec 27-Jan 3 (1 week): Pick up minivan from Vegas drive it on a California Road Trip.Drop off in San Fran

Anyone know any cheap rentals that fit both those rentals? any would be appreciated.

I've had the best luck recently with Dollar, including a LAX pickup with a Vegas drop off that was a steal, a Lincoln Towncar for under $24 a day for a week, all inclusive including the drop off!

Oddly enough, I checked a couple of the rental discount code sites and the discounter sites, but ended up booking on AA.com, which gave me an even lower price. Not to mention an additional 500 FF miles for booking there.
But I'll give my warning again. If you use Dollar be sure to sign up for their Fastlane pickup to avoid the lines I saw at both Las Vegas and SanFrancisco.

Patrick found a great deal. I have used Avis one-way from Jacksonville, Fl to LV and LV to Vancouver, BC, Canada. They were the only ones to let me do this.

This year we're using them again fr. Richmond, VA to Albany, NY, very reasonable.

Holiday season might be your only problem.

Do you need a company that allows drop-off in downtown San Francisco, or will you be returning to SF Airport?

Actually, it's a little too early to book for Dec. The car companies won't load their lower rates and promotions until maybe late October.

Whatever company you use for second part of trip, make sure you tell the rental company that you will be returning it in California, so you need a "California car" - you would think that would be self-evident, but we found it was not.

We used Thrifty out of LV airport for one-way rental to San Diego. They had to hunt the lot for a "California car" - what that means is because of strict emission standards in CA, they only want you to take a car registered in CA to CA - since they are not allowed to rent it out from California unless it meets these standards.

Price was great with Thrifty. Searching for car only took a short time, but they "upgraded" us to a van (they called it a mini-van, but it was really a 10 passenger van.) We discovered after a few miles that the transmission was shot, and returned it the next day. It could have been an honest error, or they could have been trying to get some sucker to drive a defective van over the mountains. Car was replaced without incident the next day.

We also had good luck with Dollar rent a car. We got a mini-van last year for $189/wk.Picked in up at LAX and dropped off in Las Vegas.

If you use Dollar in LAS, try DESTC or DESLV for disocount promo codes. Usually gets 10% off. And ditto on the Fastlane thing.

I've heard it's easier to find a good deal for a one-way rental dropping off in Vegas than it is taking from Vegas and leaving it somewhere else.

I got a car in Vegas and droped it at LAX for $14/day with no drop fee from Dollar. Avis had good rates too but a $27 drop fee.

I've done 3 one-way rentals (2 from LV) and never had a problem.

First time used Hertz and picked up at Seattle and dropped off in San Fran. They had a California car (Toyota Camry)waiting specifically since they had my name on a sticky note attached to the keychain.

Second time picked up at LV and dropped off in Albuquerque. Was given a car (nice bland Buick Century) with Arizona plates. Rate was the same as returning to LV. Used Avis.

Third time used Dollar from LV to San Diego. Was upgraded (kinda) to an Intrepid with 22,000 miles and California plates. I think they were taking it out of the fleet since they made a big deal about returning it to the San Diego airport.

I would say make one reservation right now to hold the one way rental and then keep checking back to see if rates drop. If the rates get better cancel the other res. Rental car companies only do fleet utilization rate analysis about 90 days in advance. Plus they have a limited number of one-way rentals in their fleet. (I know someone who worked at the HQ of a rental car company.)

After our 3 days in vegas, I am renting a car to drive to Orange County California (will drop off at John Wayne Airport) to attend a wedding.

I did some searches on Orbitz and did find that most have extra fees for a one way rental. Thrifty comes in the cheapest, but adds on a $69 drop off fee, $11.70 highway charge, $18 customer facility fee and $19.50 concession fee. So what seems like a very reasonable $120 rental turns into a $250 rental!

If anyone has done a one way rental recently from Vegas to CA and found a deal, please let me know. Thanks

travelsuper- Avis came in at $200 (total) for a three day one-way rental LAS to SNA. What are your dates? Perhaps you hit a convention week or something and cars are scarce?

I'll be in Vegas April 12-15 and then leave for CA on the 15th and will return the car to John Wayne on Monday morning April 18th.

Heres the dilemma -
1) Rent the car for the entire trip, which comes out to only $50-$60 more and we will have the convenience to use it in Vegas to go down to Fremont and to the Hoover Dam. A one week rental through Thrifty comes out to $251. The base rental is something like $107 for the week but then they add all the drop off fees, etc.

2) or just rent the car 4 days Friday through Monday, but the cheapest I'm getting with all the fees is about $170-$180 so it really doesn't save much over the one week rental. To me it seems better to pay the $251 and have the car at our disposal for whatever we want to do. We're not big gamblers so sight seeing will be top priority...

I just wish the added fees were not so high. Some of the other rental companies add on a $125+ drop off fee. Thrifty is the cheapest I found at $65 but then they all add even more one way fees on top of that....

Try rentalcarmomma.com for info on discounts. I have been searching for a month for June deals on one way rentals. The only site that I found a deal on is rentalcars.com. P/u in Vegas, drop in Phoenix for 10 days, compact car was a TOTAL (taxes, fees,etc) $241 - I do not have my confirmation with me at the moment but I believe it was with Dollar.