One way car rental in Norway
I am going to visit Norway this September. The idea is to rent a car somewhere around Bergen or Stavanger. Then drive north to see Nordkapp and finally return the car at the Tromso airport.
I checked a number of car rental websites to estimate the rental price. I attached a screenshot of an exemplary reservation.
What shocked me was one-way fees which constitute 75% of the final rental price. Do you know how to reduce those fees? Is there any company that do not charge that much?
Best Answer
Most travel pricing these days is based on supply and demand and not on actual cost. The exact same airplane seat, car, or hotel room can vary by a LOT depedning on what the provider thinks they can get. I've seen a the price for a regular Holiday Inn that typically costs around $100/night go up to over $1500 (that's a factor of over 15!)
There is not a whole lot a you can do about it other than "shopping around". Try different dates, different providers and or/different locations.
Unfortunately, there is no rhyme or reason for pricing, so "trial and error" is the way to go. Some things that I have observed
- Sometimes picking up a car in town is much cheaper than picking it up in the airport.
- Local providers can be much cheaper than the big chains (observed in Mexico, Iceland). This might be tricky with one way, though.
- A 4 day rental can be substantially cheaper than a 3 day rental. You just have to make sure that there is no "early return penalty" that some companies actually do have (observed in Germany & Netherlands).
- Go through a third party provider (observed in Germany). Last time in Germany I went with check24.de which was less than half the price than booking the same car on Enterprise's website. Given the massive price difference I was worried about this, but it went great: Enterprise even had my frequent driver number on the booking and gave my a nice upgrade.
Just one more example on how crazy this all is: I had rented a car for about 10 days or so and needed to extend it by a single day. The provider quoted a price for this extra day that was extortionary high. Fortunately I was at some point close to the rental place so I just dropped it off a few days early and managed to get a refund for the remaining days. This refund more than paid for new rental with a different provider that included the extra day. So I ended up with a "free" extension, more money in my pocket and a nicer car.
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Can you rent a car in one country in Europe and return it in another?
In most European countries, and with most rental companies, you can pick up your car in one city and return it at another with no extra charge. A no-cost one-way rental allows you to use an open-jaw air ticket and avoid the time and cost of doubling back to a single arrival/departure airport.Can you rent a car and drop it off in another country?
Can you return a car in a different country? In some cases, yes. This is most common in Europe, where crossing borders is fairly easy. Usually, rental companies will let you cross borders with the rental car, but a cross-border fee may be also applied in addition to the one-way rental fee.Why is one way car rental more expensive?
One-way car rentals are sometimes priced more or less the same as roundtrip rentals, but in many cases you'll have to pay more due to one of two factors: drop-off surcharges and high base rates.Is it better to rent a car one way or round trip?
Renting one way is typically more expensive than renting round trip. Your price is broken out into different components: the daily rate (a.k.a. time and mileage), taxes and fees, and a one-way drop charge. The drop fee can vary from one rental-car company to another, and even within a single rental car company.How to Find CHEAP Car Rental in Norway in 2022
Sources: Stack Exchange - This article follows the attribution requirements of Stack Exchange and is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0.
Images: Rachel Claire, Tim Samuel, Maria Orlova, Mihis Alex