Europe rental car "one way" drop fee

[caliroan]

Ugh - booked our van for June 23 - July 7 trip.
Picking up in Split but dropping off in Milan, which adds almost $500 to the rental in "one way" drop fee.
Have any of you found a good way to work around or reduce this?

Thinking as I write.... we only need a 6 person van for the first week of the trip. Perhaps I should investigate a June 23-30 van rental, return the van to SPU, then get a smaller car to drive for our leg in Northern Italy, which we would then drop off at MXP...? Problem is - even if significantly cheaper - that would add several hours to our travel time to Venice on the 30th, since SPU is 100km south of where we are staying in Croatia.

 

[Ian Sutton]

Hopefully others will be of help

Certainly one option is considering those legs where a car isn't essential - e.g. time spent in a city, or places such as Cinque Terre, Venice or Amalfi Coast. A week in such a place might make two (or more) separate car rentals work out cheaper - I'd expect the one way fee to be cheaper the shorter the distance. After all, they have the issue of getting that vehicle back from Milan to Split, undoubtedly not being lucky enough to coincide with someone doing the return trip.

might be worth checking cars they want to return from one way rentals in case any match your trip, as they may waiver the one way fee, or you might even be able to negotiate e.g. this is hertz's site for that http://www.hertz-transfer.eu/

 

[caliroan]

An option to explore - thanks Ian!

 

[Andrew]

The big problem is one-way rentals between countries; one-ways within the same country generally aren't so bad. If you can do public transportation between Croatia and Italy, I'm not surer how many people would be traveling, but you can see how the price compares.

 

[Bruce Pollock]

The big problem is one-way rentals between countries; one-ways within the same country generally aren't so bad.

This has been my experience as well. Although I have never dropped a car in another country, during my research into the possibility, I found that it was very expensive. I wonder if you may find it cheaper to take the train to Italy and rent a second vehicle there. Might be worth exploring.