Earlier this year, I took an awe-inspiring road trip to the Northern Rocky Mountains. This trip required a one-way international car rental between the Canada and the United States.
What You Need To Know About One-Way International Car Rentals Between Canada and the United States
#1 It’s challenging to find a company that rents one-way international car rentals:
When I set out to book a one-way international car rental, I thought to myself, “piece of cake”. I hit up all the usual suspects in car rental bookings: Expedia, Travelocity, Enterprise, Avis, etc., but wasn’t having any luck finding anything available.
I was just about to hit “panic mode” when I found exactly one car available on Expedia.com through Enterprise Rent-A-Car. I did the prudent thing and booked it immediately. I’m glad I did, because I subsequently checked back every few days to see if something became available – to no avail.
In retrospect, after talking with the Enterprise guys in the United States when I dropped off my car, they said that people rent one-way international car rentals from them “all the time”. If the availability doesn’t show on the website, then the best bet is to call Enterprise directly to make a reservation.
#2 Renting a car in the Canadian Rockies is expensive – very expensive:
Prepare yourself. Renting cars out of Calgary or Vancouver can be very expensive. I knew this going in but there was still a little “sticker-shock”.
I managed to land a seven day rental for $1,017.24 ($145.32 a day).
#3 Watch out for the currency conversion:
When I inquired about my bill at the Enterprise location I returned my car to in the United States, I was told that the rental would be billed through the Canadian branch that I rented from in Calgary (YYC), hence billed in Canadian dollars.
Here’s a copy of the Summary of Charges:
Well, it turned out that I got bit by some sort of exchange rate shenanigans. When I converted $1,365.93 Canadian to US dollars I was over-billed by about $70.
I made a call to the Calgary branch where I rented from at YYC. The service representative couldn’t have been more helpful. She realized instantly that there was indeed a currency conversion issue. I had asked for the $70 US difference, but she said, “How about we just refund you $140 and call it a day? Would that work”? Why yes indeed that would work, thank you very much.
#4Â Canadians are literally the nicest people on planet earth:
Which brings me to my next point: Canadians are the nicest people in the world and provide excellent service – especially the ones who work at Enterprise at Calgary (YYC).
Every step of the way, I was greeted with an unexpected surprise of sincerely great service. When I arrived at the front desk, they said, “Sir, would you like an upgrade to a Kia Sorento SUV at no extra cost”? Followed by, “The price of a GPS is $18 a day — but that’s too much, how does $3 a day sound”?
When I got to the SUV, the attendant double-checked the GPS unit, then changed the programing from Chinese to English (rather than leaving me stranded somewhere to figure it out). It was these nice touches and attention to detail that leads me to highly recommend Enterprise YYC.
The Americans at Enterprise back in the States weren’t half bad either. When I returned the Canadian SUV [with a kilometer-based speedometer], they were very helpful and offered to give me a ride back halfway across the city.
#5 Renting an One-Way International Car Rental between Canada and the United States is Easy:
All-in-all, Enterprise really made the entire experience seamless and easy. The hardest part was learning how to measure kilometers when driving in Canada, and then trying to remember how to re-measure miles back in the US.
It seems like many people in the Canadian Rockies choose to do the one-way international car rental thing, and Enterprise really makes it easy. I highly recommend them if you are thinking about one-way international rentals up in the Northern Rockies.
Cheers!
