An anonymous reader left another great way to avoid one-way surcharges on rental cars:

While this fee cannot be avoided sometimes, here’s a way I minimized it on a recent trip. We landed in Calgary, AB and had to drive to Jasper, AB, getting on a train to Vancouver, BC three and a half days later.

The rate for the car that was a one-way rental was almost $150/day! The rate for a car rented and returned to Jasper was $55/day.

I rented the Calgary-Jasper car for 24 hours, with a new rental starting at the same time on day 2 in Jasper that I returned the first car.

I cut the rental bill from about $520 to $290 when the taxes, fees, etc were removed.

This is a great trick and I’m disappointed in myself for not thinking of it myself. While the surcharge was a single line item charge on my original rental bill, I never checked how much the car would’ve cost on a daily basis if it were an in-town rental. Considering the size of the islands, trading the car in multiple times wouldn’t have been a significant hassle and may have saved us some money.

Thanks anonymous reader!

When my wife and I were on the Big Island, we rented a car from Hilo (eastern side) that would eventually be returned in Kona (western side). Since it was a one-way rental, meaning the car wouldn’t be returned to where it was rented, there was a $50 surcharge. Boo!

A tip I picked up, unfortunately too late for that trip, recently was that you can avoid the one-way surcharge if you request a car that was originally from your destination. In our case, I could have requested a car that originated in Kona and avoided the charge. There’s never a guarantee that such a car would be available but if it was, I could avoid a $50 fee. I imagine that scenario happens a lot in Hawaii, since they’re all islands, and less so elsewhere but it’s always worth a shot!