Best car rental agencies for different pickup/drop off cities?

I've looked at a few and there seems to be a big range of fees or rate differentials for rentals where the vehicle is driven one way between two different cities.

Anyone know of particular car rental firms that are less costly for this type of rental

Depends on the two cities. Many one ways like this will be expensive regardless of what companies. Ones where the drive is popular both ways won't be

Would hotwire.com help?

Kayak it.

A few years ago, my daughter moved out to Chicago and we had to find a one way car rental from NJ. A few pointers - you have to check where the cars can be returned. We ended up ruling out a few where we had to return the car to the airport even if you pick it up locally, say Livingston. Second, Kayak or other search sites can help or at least focus your research. Third, you can sometimes use discount coupons such as Hertz that will lower the cost. And not all national firms support one-way moves. We ended up with Budget but only after a lot of calls and comparisons. It was still expensive but about $500, which was far less than other options available.

From Oklahoma City to St Louis.

Well, LOL, I can't imagine this is a "hot" route. I think it's going to be expensive because a one way like this will have significant fees. I don't think you'll fid any company offering a great dea. that being said, I find Hotwire to be the best source for car rentals

We had to do this last year when our car broke down on vacation in NH. We rented a car from Enterprise that we used for the rest of the week and we dropped it off in Millburn when we got home. There was a $100 drop off fee in addition to the daily rate. We really didn't have much choice so just sucked it up.

Have you considered U-Haul or similar? They might be more set up for one-ways, if your driver would be comfortable with a van or small truck.

I think I can add two things to this discussion, SAC. First, for future reference/rentals, there is a British company called Atlas Choice (atlaschoice.com) that often has the best prices on car rentals (on a few occasions, I've done much better with it than carrentals.com, kayak, hotwire, etc.). In this case you can't use them, because they don't support interstate rentals (and I'm just not sure about one-way rentals in-state). The other thing I've discovered across time is that in addition to origin/destination points at major airports, those in-town office rentals are often much more reasonable. (I'm booking a Haverhill, MA to Maplewood rental this summer that was essentially half of the cost of a rental from MHT to EWR.) And finally, always try every possible relevant discount code--I have even searched online and found some that I never would have thought to use. Anyway, good luck with this!

Thanks!

It turned out that there were very significant differences among the various agencies and, to my surprise, it was the usually more budget-oriented ones that were the worst. The deal we ended up getting with Hertz wasn't too bad. (And more than paid for by saving on three extra-leg airfares, by a lot!)