I almost P**ped my pants....

1 week car rental with Hertz..Anchorage pick up, Seward drop off...over 3000 dollars! WHAAAAAAAT? No pun to nyended but, that is highway robbery!

 

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yup the one way rentals are more than double the return to same location ones.

We are renting a midsize car from the Anchorage Hertz K street location and dropping off in Seward one week later and our total cost with all fees, etc so far is around $600. I priced it out to drop it off in Anchorage and take a bus to Seward and it would have been around the same price with the bus prices. I realize we will have to also take a cab (or some type of transportation from the airport to the car rental) but it was WAY cheaper to rent away from the airport.

I will keep watching the prices to see if it goes down at all. We are travelling at the end of August and doing 8 days on land on our own prior to cruising on Sept 7th.

yup the one way rentals are more than double the return to same location ones.

Could the OP be looking at the 1 way rental fee PLUS mileage cost for the 1 way? I think THAT's where the $$$ is coming in.

So, I did another Hertz search this morning, this time choosing a downtown Anchorage pick up (vs airport) and got a 500 dollar a week quote for economy...whassup with that?

 

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It may only make a small difference but search Hertz via the United Airlines website (don't need air tix) to use their discount code. Also, look at Costco's prices.

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Often, rental bookings are just "reservations". Even when you pay. I do Costcotravel.com in case something happens cuz Costco is a safer bet in terms of customer service. I'll book something and just check periodically and if it goes down, just book the new lower price and cancel the old more expensive one. For me, the security of having my booking in place is worth the hassle of price checking every month or so. I only book vacation trips out that far anyways so it's something fun and vacation related to do.

How many people are in the party? At that price, I'd just do the week rental in Anchorage and take a shuttle bus to Seward.

Hertz from Seward for 3 days in May 2019 (11 months from now) drop off at Anchorage airport is $999 a day plus fees and taxes unlimited miles. All cars are the same price, except vans. I tried Costco and the AAA rate.

Renting from airport price comes down to $359 a day with 125 miles per day, not enough for us. Still cheaper but we didn’t want to go through Anchorage.

I just called Hertz in Seward - $180 a day for a full size and unlimited miles, drop off at Anchorage airport.

call them - the $999 is just a placeholder until they post their actual inventory, Said the same thing when we booked ours last year and calling them direct it was $179 per day.

We disembark in Seward and are picking up the rental car and then staying for 2 nights at the hotel Alyeska in Girdwood, and spending those 2 days exploring around between Seward and Anchorage. To the tune of $599 for the car rental (my husband is blissfully unaware of what I paid for this and will remain this way :D ) However, the way I figured it, we were going to be taking the dome train from Seward to Anchorage and that was over $400 for the two of us, then picking up a rental in Anchorage that was going to run us about $200 for 3 days. So price wise, it's about the same. Does it pain me to pay $600 for a car rental? Yes. But I don't want to waste a day getting to Anchorage to rent a cheaper car. I just want to get to the hotel and start exploring.

I spoke to the Hertz office in Seward yesterday. If you have AAA membership, present your card when you pick up the car for a 5% discount. They won't put it on the reservation in advance, so the chance of me remembering this in the rush of disembarkation etc is pretty small. Maybe writing it here will help.

I kept watching for price drops and in the end, we are paying just over $300 for a rental from the K street location in Anchorage with drop off in Seward from Hertz from a Thursday to the following Friday so for 8 days. It was insanely expensive from the airport. That is for a full size car at the end of August. Originally it was going to be almost 600 so I ended up paying 1/2 of that and adding an extra day to it so was pretty happy with that. Then my sister is a TA and she was able to get it even cheaper through her travel site so it worked out really well for us.

We disembark in Seward and are picking up the rental car and then staying for 2 nights at the hotel Alyeska in Girdwood, and spending those 2 days exploring around between Seward and Anchorage. To the tune of $599 for the car rental (my husband is blissfully unaware of what I paid for this and will remain this way :D ) However, the way I figured it, we were going to be taking the dome train from Seward to Anchorage and that was over $400 for the two of us, then picking up a rental in Anchorage that was going to run us about $200 for 3 days. So price wise, it's about the same. Does it pain me to pay $600 for a car rental? Yes. But I don't want to waste a day getting to Anchorage to rent a cheaper car. I just want to get to the hotel and start exploring.

I believe the train makes a stop in Girdwood.

we found much better rental car rates with TURO. You deal with individuals, perhaps they would do a one way with an additional (but much less fee)

Bottom line some times a costly rental make significantly better use of time. Some people may be quick to dismiss but the “cost” in value of limited time could be a whole lot more. My time is way more important to me in Alaska. 😀😀