In April, I will need to rent a car in Orlando area and drop car off in Clearwater Beach area. Any suggestions how best to do a one way short term car rental? Thanks!
Florida is pretty good about doing one way rentals with the fee waived sometimes. I guess it depends on your actual situation. If you have someone in the Tampa Bay area that can pick you up from the rental agency, then you should look for the best deal, whether at an airport (TPA or PIE) or neighborhood location (which many times run specials). If you need a generic drop off with follow-on transportation, Tampa International and Clearwater/St Petersburg airports have car/shuttle service from these locations as well as taxis.
Look into the each of the major companies (Avis (w/Budget), Hertz, and Enterprise (with Alamo and National) to see who have the best deal here.
I like to use http://www.carrentalsavers.com/florida-car-rental.html as it searches several agencies at once and automatically applies current coupons. It also has different sections for Florida (as in the link above), USAA, CostCo, WalMart, and other club type discounts.