Extortion for car rental in Alaska

Looking into renting a car for a pre-cruise drive to Denali. Thought I would fly to Fairbanks (closer to Denali) then drop car off in Anchorage. Are they serious?!!! Charging close to $700 to rent a car for a few days. If I don't do a one way rental and fly into and return to Anchorage, I can prepay now for a total of less than $200. I've rented cars around the world and not dealt with such extortion.

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Welcome to the world of charging whatever the traffic will bear. Renting an SUV for a few hours in Skagway will cost you $175.

Seems like a minor inconvenience to fly to Anchorage and then do the scenic drive to Denali from there. Our itinerary ends in Seward and we're taking a motor coach tour from there to Anchorage and then doing the drive to Denali. I suppose the Alaska tourist season is five months and the rental car companies might get hurt more by returns to different locations and plan on a certain inventory always being available.

There are 3 factors at play:

1. Alaska prices are very high due to short tourist season

2. Less than a week rental. Short term rates are almost always much higher at any location.

3. One-way rentals are always higher than round-trip.

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They know their traffic patterns, and they know that they'll have to drive that one-way car back themselves because it'll be days until they get the right customer to take it back the other way on a one-way rental, and they can't have that capacity tied up in the wrong city.

5 years ago we rented a Toyota Highlander for 9 days pick up in anchorage and drop off at Whittier. It was $200.00 a day.....$1800.00 for 9 days. Luckily we were with friends and split the cost. Even though that was a crazy price, it was a beautiful trip we will always remember! I'd do it again....in fact I am next year! Cost of being blessed to visit Alaska!!

I've rented cars around the world and not dealt with such extortion.

 

 

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? Extortion

Why the drama?

I really do not think that the rental agencies are wresting money through the use of violence, intimidation, or abuse of authority. No one is forcing the visitor to rent the car.

This seems to be the free market at play. Supply is much lower than demand.

Welcome to the world of charging whatever the traffic will bear. Renting an SUV for a few hours in Skagway will cost you $175.

in loving memory of Soap Smith

Welcome to Alaska!

We managed to get a 1 day rental in Juneau for $66. Still pretty expensive, more than double what I'm use to, but still significantly cheaper than paying for the bus. Not sure how long "a few days" is, but $200 might not be out of the norm ... for Alaska...

I did an Alaska road trip this past May/June and drove almost 2,000 miles. Originally I was wanting to fly into Fairbanks and start there, returning the car to Anchorage and flying home from there. I was renting from National but they didn't even offer the ability to rent and return to a different location. So...we flew into Anchorage and rented & returned there. It worked out very well because we did a long loop from Anchorage to Glenallen to Fairbanks (with a diversion to Coldfoot) then Denali, back to Anchorage then south to Whittier, Seward, Soldotna, Homer and finally back to Anchorage where we turned the car back in. We had an almost new Chevrolet Traverse all-wheel-drive (just a couple thousand miles on it) and I think my rate for two weeks was $897 total including extra driver, insurance, unlimited mileage, etc. About $65 per day.

We rented a Ford Explorer Platinum through Hertz to and from Anchorage for 8 days in June for $867 (reservation, without deposit, made in late february). We were splitting it with another couple, but it was money well spent. Depending how long you have in the area, I would think you'd be able to justify to and from Anchorage. It's a 4 or 4.5 hour drive, but very scenic.

Extortion? That's being overdramatic

Simple economics - supply and demand. Short tourist season, very little competition and driving one-way to a somewhat isolated location

I just paid $1500 to have a car shipped from Seattle to Juneau. Now imagine if you had a fleet of rental cars to ship to Anchorage or Fairbanks, another 800 miles past Juneau.

Rental cars are expected to be new models in pristine condition. A car owner in Alaska will replace their windshield every other year if they don't want to have cracks. That's not even taking into effect other gravel damage like broken headlights and chipped paint.

If they need to move that car back to Fairbanks to keep inventory up, they'll have to pay a driver and the high fuel prices to do it.

Fairbanks is a small town by Outside standards, and doesn't have the level of year round industry that Anchorage does. It's not going to have the large inventory or all the companies to keep prices down.

So, not so much on the extortion. The cost of doing any business is significantly higher in Alaska with factors which may not be easily seen.

Yes I think you'd have to take into account what it costs them to get "rental" cars there, plus to keep them road worthy for the climate there..I can see where it would cost more

I did an Alaska road trip this past May/June and drove almost 2,000 miles. Originally I was wanting to fly into Fairbanks and start there, returning the car to Anchorage and flying home from there. I was renting from National but they didn't even offer the ability to rent and return to a different location. So...we flew into Anchorage and rented & returned there. It worked out very well because we did a long loop from Anchorage to Glenallen to Fairbanks (with a diversion to Coldfoot) then Denali, back to Anchorage then south to Whittier, Seward, Soldotna, Homer and finally back to Anchorage where we turned the car back in. We had an almost new Chevrolet Traverse all-wheel-drive (just a couple thousand miles on it) and I think my rate for two weeks was $897 total including extra driver, insurance, unlimited mileage, etc. About $65 per day.

So now, National, allows, in writing, the ability to to drive the Dalton Highway up to Coldfoot?

Try autoslash.com

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Looking into renting a car for a pre-cruise drive to Denali. Thought I would fly to Fairbanks (closer to Denali) then drop car off in Anchorage. Are they serious?!!! Charging close to $700 to rent a car for a few days. If I don't do a one way rental and fly into and return to Anchorage, I can prepay now for a total of less than $200. I've rented cars around the world and not dealt with such extortion.

 

 

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Let me slightly restate your question. You have an apartment to rent. The fair market monthly price is $1000 per month or $12,000 per year. However, for climatic reasons, you can only get people to rent it for four months of the year - May, June, July and August. If you rent it for only those 4 months at $1000 per month, you would get only $4000 per year total.

So what do you do - you raise the rent for the months that you can rent it to $3000 per month so that you get your $12,000 per year. Would you say that the $3000 per month rental is as you say "extortion".

DON

So now, National, allows, in writing, the ability to to drive the Dalton Highway up to Coldfoot?

I'm not sure what National's policy is now, you should check with them.

I'm not sure what National's policy is now, you should check with them.

They never have allowed in the past. You state you did this drive. Did you just decide to violate the contract, or did you have the written permission?

It was our favorite part of the trip - beautiful weather and scenery. Next time we are going all the way to Deadhorse.