One way/day car rental

[TinkerTay]

We (fiancé & I) are flying into John Wayne on September 9th @ 11:30am and checking into the GCH. We are not going to the parks until the next day, so we have most of the day free. We’re thinking about getting a rental car from the airport, and just returning it late that night somewhere close to the hotel and walk back. Has anyone done this, and which rental company is the easiest return/lowest price? Alamo is very expensive for one day, so I’m looking for other options. Also, somewhere we can return the car after hours, possibly 10 or 11pm. If it’s too complicated, then we will just shuttle to the hotel/parks and hang out in DTD for the day, but we would like to go to a couple places farther away while we are down there (Camp Pendleton & La Brea) Any help, info, experiences would be super awesome!

 

[smartlabelprint]

Check Costco and see the prices for a 24 hour rental. I don’t think they dock you for bringing it in early.

 

[ParkHopper1]

Price out return to SNA. You can drop any time and it is only a $20 Uber ride to the DL area

 

[Dizzy4DL]

I'm renting a car from Alamo for less than a day. $30 total and pickup/drop off is at PPH. I went through Costco.

 

[TinkerTay]

Thanks all, my issue is that I wanted to pick it up at the airport when we land, and use that as my transportation elsewhere, and then back to the hotel eventually, late that night. If I use Alamo with a different return location, it’s over 80 bucks. It’s MUCH less if I got it/returned it to the same place, but was just hoping to figure out if there was an easier way to do a late return so we could just leave from the airport and not have to backtrack first. I’m kinda figuring at this point it will probably just cost a little more than I originally wanted to spend, but I mostly need to make sure I can do an after-hours return...

 

[TinkerTay]

Oh, and the other reason for returning that night was to not have to pay for a night of parking at the hotel

 

[dclDream2018]

There is an Avis on Katella - we have reservations to pick up at LAX and then next day drop off at that location.

 

[dclDream2018]

BTW through Costco, it's only $62.

 

[tasha99]

I have found 1-way rentals are sometimes significantly cheaper if you pick up at a non-airport car rental agency (and still drop at an airport). We've saved hundreds of dollars taking an uber or taxi to an in town car rental place for pick up.

 

[SOCALMouseMommy]

No comment on the car rental and you might already know this, but I just wanted to point out that Pendleton and La Brea are each about an hour away from SNA in opposite directions. That is IF there is no traffic... and traffic is likely.

 

[TinkerTay]

Thanks everybody, but I think we’ve changed our plans now completely, and we are just going to shuttle to the hotel and buy an extra day in the parks, since we will have most of that day/night after all. The bummer is that it costs almost as much for a 1 day as our 4 day military tix... but I’m willing to just bite the bullet to have that much more time in the parks, lol