<p>Hi!
We’re thinking of renting a car one-way from Seattle and driving down to LA (we’re catching Amtrak up overnight LAX to Seattle). The lowest prices I have found for the dates we want (May/June) is over $1000 for the 17-18 days we plan to drive, intermediate/midsize car with Hertz. Has anyone had experiences – good or bad on bidding on Priceline for one-way rental? I’ve never bid on Priceline but have been happy to date with blind hotel purchases on Hotwire. Have heard of folks who were happy with their Priceline cars, but as I said, I really have no experience and would love any insights.
Thanks!
HImom</p>
<p>You won’t be able to get one way rental from Prieceline. I don’t think you’ll even be able to get rental from Pricenline if you are renting outside of an airport.</p>
<p>Actually, I don’t think 1000.00 is a bad rate for an 18 day with drop-off rental if it includes all taxes.</p>
<p>We could do the airport but are definitely only interested in one-way rentals. Priceline DOES now allow one way car rentals, both for the fixed price and bidding options. You can either name the city or the airport for the pick up and drop off cities. I just checked. When we did the fixed prices on Priceline, they were even higher than what Hertz quoted me. 
The other companies were even higher.</p>
<p>Try National.</p>
<p>The price, with all taxes & allowing me, hubby & S (who is 22) to drive is $1089.52. They will come & pick us up & also come & pick up the car as well. It is with Hertz & is for 17 days (we decided we really don’t want or need a car while in Seattle, but want & need it to drive out, hopefully to visit Mt. Ranier).</p>
<p>I tried Alamo & the price was over $2000! I’ve generally found that Alamo is the lower price partner of National. :(</p>
<p>The price you have is very good (based on my checking). If you want another data point, try Thrifty (or that travel site <em>xp</em>d**). Good luck with your trip!</p>
<p>It is almost cheaper to buy a car and push it over a cliff when done.</p>
<p>If you have not bid on Priceline before…you can try my method!</p>
<p>Bid what you would be willing to pay. </p>
<p>So…if the least expensive is $1000, and, if you’re willing to pay $500…bid $500. It might be accepted…or…you’ll get a pop-up that says something like “$500 would be a great price for this rental, but, recently accepted bids have been no lower than $800.” At that point, you can decide if you want to bid $800…or $700…or submit the $500 bid.</p>
<p>If your bid isn’t accepted, I think you have to wait 24 hours before you can bid again…unless it’s a day before the rental.</p>
<p>There is only one slight negative to this method. The initial $500 bid might be accepted…which makes you think you could have gotten the car for a lower bid. But…from my point of view…it’s still lower than the $1000 everyone else would have charged.</p>
<p>So I just did a hypothetical situation with my Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards account. You mentioned 17-18 days in May/June. So I plugged in picking up a full-size car at Portland airport on May 21, and dropping it off at LAX on June 7th. </p>
<p>Thrifty was less than 1/2 of what the other companies were charging, which were more in the $1000-$1300 range. In fact, Thrifty lists a full-size car for that time period for $450. I had no way to add extra drivers, so that would be extra, but so would adding extra drivers to the other rental companies. I know you wouldn’t necessarily use Southwest Airlines since you live in Hawaii, but it might be worth it to enroll in their Rapid Rewards program for a car rental.</p>
<p>Mid-sized is $389.</p>
<p>In general, try to rent from a location other than SeaTac Airport or Portland Airport to save on rental taxes. There are a lot of discount codes you might be able to use, and most companies seem to allow a spouse to drive for no extra fee. I remember Alamo being the exception to that rule. If you could split a rental into a short rt rental and a one-way rental, costs may go down.</p>
<p>Thanks–I’ve never bid before on Priceline, but have known many people who have had good results bidding on it (hotels as well as cars). Appreciate your suggestions. The fixed prices are high enough to make me seriously consider bidding for the first time.</p>
<p>The quotes I have are from Seattle Downtown to Los Angeles, Downtown (no airports). I suppose I could split the rental into two shorter one way rentals, but don’t see much advantage in that. We’re going to be going down along the West Coast, so can’t easily envision a round trip and one way.</p>
<p>Thanks, Teriwitt! Will look into that!</p>
<p>When I tried booking it, the $495 drop off fee makes the total even higher than the Hertz price I was previously quoted. The $495 drop fee was whether I rented under any of several different plans.</p>
<p>How did you not have the drop fee imposed? Maybe it doesn’t get imposed if the rental is from Oregon? I’ll try that next</p>
<p>Just got off the phone with them & they said the fee is what the tow company charges to get the car back to LA!</p>
<p>You might want to start with kayak - it searches lots of travel sites at once so you can often compare prices across the board…</p>
<p>[Cheap</a> Flights, Hotels, Airline Tickets, Cheap Tickets, Travel Deals - KAYAK - Compare Hundreds of Travel Sites At Once](<a href=“http://www.kayak.com/]Cheap”>http://www.kayak.com/)</p>
<p>Also if to are going to bid for anything on priceline you should check and see what price other travelers are bidding and the prices they end up paying at Bidding for travel . com</p>
<p>[BiddingForTravel.com</a> - Message Board Yuku](<a href=“http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com/]BiddingForTravel.com”>http://biddingfortravel.yuku.com/)</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>[Priceline</a> and Hotwire Forum](<a href=“http://www.betterbidding.com/]Priceline”>http://www.betterbidding.com/)</p>
<p>Good Luck…</p>
<p>Thanks, the car rental rates at Kayak and everywhere else so far have been higher than the price I was quoted from Hertz. Only Fox seems to have cheaper cars, but they are out of cars in Seattle, so that’s not so helpful. It would be cheap with FOX to rent the car in LA & drive up to Seattle (under $500), but then we wouldn’t see the loveliest part of the train ride during daylight hours, in case the train is delayed getting back to LA. Sigh. We wil just have to mull it over.
Thanks for all of these thoughts.</p>
<p>Well, was able to make a reservation going in the opposite direction, LAX to Seattle airport for under $402 with Fox Rent a Car, based out of LA. They said to keep calling to see if a car is available in Seattle that I could drive to LA (currently all are taken but they have changes every day). Hubby really wants us to drive Seattle down to LA (even if it is $700 more). </p>
<p>Everyone says the Amtrak train ride from LA to Seattle (especially the beginning between LA & SF) is great & best seen in daylight, which will happen if we leave from LA but might not happen if we come from Seattle & there are any delays.</p>
<p>I have never done this, but there are companies that relocate cars for people who are moving. Use drive away cars in your search engine, and you may find someone that needs a car driven down the coast. If you found the right person you could save yourself a lot of money.</p>
<p>We used a discount code from Budget and saved a ton of money on a rental in Florida. No one knows the source of the code, but it’s worked for several people. Try booking with Budget, using the BCD # X797726 or U071101.</p>
<p>could the problem be listing your 22 yr old as one of the drivers? have you tried plugging the numbers leaving him off the drivers list?</p>