Car rentals for under 25 drivers? (Los Angeles, San Diego: insurance, credit card, price)

[theh]

I'm hoping someone can help. We're going to CA in about two weeks. We have everything reserved, but we're having a lot of trouble finding a car to rent at a reasonable price. Every place has these ridiculous daily fees for drivers who are under the age of 25 that makes the price at least twice as much. We are flying into San Diego and driving up the coast to San Francisco, so we need a one-way rental.

We're both 24 and have spotless driving records. We were counting on Enterprise when we did our initial planning for this trip, but the first time we called to inquire about their rates and policies, they failed to mention that we would have to rent a mid-sized car or a minivan for a one-way rental, which would cost over a grand. So we are stuck. I've tried Rent-A-Wreck already but since their offices are independently owned, we can't do a one-way rental. I've been looking for smaller, local businesses and their rates have been significantly better for young drivers, but the problem I'm running into is that since they're small businesses, they don't normally have multiple locations and therefore we can't do a one-way rental.

Does anyone have any suggestions? Does anyone know of any independent car rental places that might have locations in both San Diego and San Francisco or specialize in one-way rentals?

Thanks for any help. We're starting to get pretty desperate!

[Puddy4LyF]

I was a 21-year old driver when I rented a car in Los Angeles about 1.5 years ago. It is a car rental agency owned by a young indian/middle eastern man not far from LAX on Century Boulevard. (If my information is workable for you, I'll dig through receipts to see the name of his company.)

He allowed me to rent a new 2007 Nissan without the under-25 fees involved as long as I purchased insurance. For 497 dollars, I took the new car for 2 weeks and I put about 2,000 miles on the car from LA to San Francisco to Napa to Yosemite to Fresno to Joshua Tree to San Diego and back to L.A.

He picked us up at the airport about 11pm too and all of this was done on short notice. Anyway, had a great trip. I think he only has that store in L.A. though.

Good luck.

[bhcompy]

For one way rentals I would say you're probably stuck. It's just the nature of things in california. It would probably be cheaper to rent a U-Haul pickup truck and just not haul anything, then you could possibly get around the under 25 fees that permiate the industry

[leon86ka]

Originally Posted by Puddy4LyF

I was a 21-year old driver when I rented a car in Los Angeles about 1.5 years ago. It is a car rental agency owned by a young indian/middle eastern man not far from LAX on Century Boulevard. (If my information is workable for you, I'll dig through receipts to see the name of his company.)

He allowed me to rent a new 2007 Nissan without the under-25 fees involved as long as I purchased insurance. For 497 dollars, I took the new car for 2 weeks and I put about 2,000 miles on the car from LA to San Francisco to Napa to Yosemite to Fresno to Joshua Tree to San Diego and back to L.A.

He picked us up at the airport about 11pm too and all of this was done on short notice. Anyway, had a great trip. I think he only has that store in L.A. though.

Good luck.

would you please give me the address and phone number of this company??? Thank you

[Paula Lynn]

Try National.

[buckeyenative01]

I frequently rented from Enterprise when I was 23/24 and was never charged any "under 25" fees. Did an under 25 law/tax go into effect recently?

[jcrawford_Sd]

The larger car rental places (Hertz, Avis, Enterprise etc.) are very picky about who they rent to. You need to be over 25, have major credit card, etc.

The locally owned-and-operated car rental places tend to be much more leniant, as they can make their own rules. The big ones have their hands tied by corporate-wide rules.

In San Diego, Discount Car Rental San Diego is a locally-owned business, has cheap rates and will rent to 18+ drivers.

Another option would be to look on the local craigslist for people that need a car moved from SD to San Francisco. They might even pay for your gas/lodging as you are providing them with a service.

Hope this helps.