June 2013 one way car rental help

lvdis

love disney
Joined
Aug 20, 2009
I know this is a long way off, but I was wondering if anyone has experience with one way car rentals. We are traveling June 12, 2013 - June 22, 2013. Flying into Phoenix, AZ and out of Santa Barbara, CA. We plan to drive to Grand Canyon (1 night), Las Vegas (2 nights), Anaheim (4 nights), San Diego (2 nights) and end in Santa Barbara, CA (1 night).

Before I booked our flights I made sure we would be able to get a car in Phoenix and return it in Santa Barbara. The rates this far out are really scary. I played around with some sample rentals for Nov / Dec dates just to get an idea before I booked our flights and could get the price down closer to reasonable.

I need help though, knowing where to look for the best rental deals and how to get my costs down. Does anyone have any creative ideas on how to accomplish this? Maybe I just won't be able to do anything until much closer, but I'm getting anxious! Thanks for any insight you have!

(I also posted this in the Transportation forum the other day, but I thought someone on this board might be of help too! Since much of the transportation board is about Florida) Thanks!
 
I thought I'd post this reply here too. I followed some advice I was given on the Transportation board about splitting my rental car reservation.

I wanted to let you know I've had some success in bringing the price down to something more reasonable! I was able to make two reservations last night using National and a Car and Driver code I found. We will pick the car up at the Phoenix airport when we arrive on 6/12 and return it to Anaheim on W. Katella (right around the corner from Disneyland Resort) on 6/15 when we arrive for our Disney part of the trip. The 2nd reservation has us picking it up from the National on Katella street on 6/19 when we leave DLR and returning it to the Santa Barbara Airport on 6/22. We aren't going to need a car while we're at Disney anyway so this is perfect! The total for both segments is $565.80. I will keep checking leading up to the time we go, but this is a price I can live with! Thanks for the advice! All it took was a little creativity!

I forgot to mention it is for a Standard SUV (Jeep Grand Cherokee or similar).

Hopefully this will help someone else too!
 
ivdis:

I'd love to hear more details about your trip planning. This is very similar to a trip we'd like to take this summer (even about the same time frame). I was wondering if you'd be willing to share more details about your itinerary--such as which hotels you've investigated and overall budget--like where are you flying from?

I have a potential business trip in Nashville this summer, so we were thinking about driving cross country--I mean if we spend two days driving from VA to TN, we could spend another 2-3 days to get to AZ, which would only put us another day or so from Anaheim. But to cut out some driving, we are also considering flying into CA, same as you are. Cost looks to be about the same when you compare gas/hotel $$ vs. flight $$ for the trip out.
 
ivdis:

I'd love to hear more details about your trip planning. This is very similar to a trip we'd like to take this summer (even about the same time frame). I was wondering if you'd be willing to share more details about your itinerary--such as which hotels you've investigated and overall budget--like where are you flying from?

I have a potential business trip in Nashville this summer, so we were thinking about driving cross country--I mean if we spend two days driving from VA to TN, we could spend another 2-3 days to get to AZ, which would only put us another day or so from Anaheim. But to cut out some driving, we are also considering flying into CA, same as you are. Cost looks to be about the same when you compare gas/hotel $$ vs. flight $$ for the trip out.

Hello! Here are the reservations we have; Kachina Lodge at the Grand Canyon, renting a house through vrbo.com for Las Vegas, Ramada Inn Maingate ATP (At The Park) for Disneyland, renting another house in San Diego through vrbo and staying at The Castillo Inn at the Beach in Santa Barbara.
 



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