Flight Cancellation Backup Plan: One-way Rental Car

If you’re one of the thousands of American Airline passengers stranded since Tuesday because of FAA-ordered emergency safety inspections to its fleet of MD-80s, and are surfing KickingTires on your laptop to pass the time, we’re here to help you with options. We looked into how much it might cost to rent a car to get to where you need to be, instead of waiting for that mythical “next plane” to arrive.

We picked Chicago-to-Charlotte as our test case because you’re a lot less likely to be able to hop on a some other airline’s flight to a smaller city like Charlotte. It’s a doable one-day drive from Chicago, at around 12 hours and 797 miles, although it’s obviously a long day of driving. To give you an idea of what damage this can do to your credit card, we called three rental car agencies at O’Hare to see how expensive it would be for a one-way rental of a midsize car like Chevrolet Malibu or Chrysler Sebring. One-way rentals are notoriously more expensive than a return rental, and this trip isn’t looking like much of an exception.

• Enterprise: $773.74 ($175.99 per day, plus 75 cents per mile — ouch!)
• National: $567.68, no mileage charge
• Hertz: $302.75, no mileage charge

Pricing is all over the place and we gasped (audibly) at the 75 cents per mile fee from Enterprise for our almost 800-mile trip from Charlotte to Chicago.

We asked all three about if they offer any discounts or consolation pricing for stuck travelers. We were returned with an immediate “no” from one rental agency, and another seemed ready to break into laughter at the suggestion.

Comments

Also since a lot of these companies now stock new cars that you might want to buy, what better way to get an extended test drive.

Thats one expensive test drive.

What about carpooling in this case?

Spreading that cost out over 3 or 4 people, and with the refund from the airline for the flight, it might just be more economical.

How hard can it be to find someone else stranded going the same place?

That's a great point, Woogie, especially since they're likely sitting at the same gate at the airport.

Woogie,
that's an excellent idea.

I don't think I'd want to spend 12 hours in a car with four strangers. That's just me.

A round trip in a rental car would probably be cheaper than a one-way rental, especially if you can get reimbursed for airfare. Plus you get to tell people you drove for 24 hours in a three day period.

Priceline is a GREAT way to get a CHEAP rental car! I've gotten a car for about $10/day in San Francisco before.

I ALWAYS book through Hotwire.com. it's WAY cheap and only uses the big rental firms so you will never get ripped off.

I once considered hiring a car back from Cincinatti to Chicago due to my flight potentially being delayed overnight. I will admit though, that the temptation was mostly because it was suggested by the gorgeous fellow passenger i'd ended up befriending. I was almost disappointed my flight left on that night in the end!

Just a couple of points:

(1) A website call http://dealnews.com was listing $5/day 1-way for many rental companies (I remember Budget, Hertz, etc.). Websites of R.C. also had those specials..."HAD" before this airline companies dilemma...

(2) What 'bou the train? Or coach (like Greyhound)? They are cheap, fast (esp train) and comfy (train).

Good to know. I'll strike Enterprise off my list...forever.

Mr. Bruzek,

I simply do not believe the Enterprise quote.

According to the people I spoke to in February, Enterprise never rents one-way outside of local metro areas.

How you ever got them to give you a quote is beyond me!