Griffin and his co-founder developed a system that paired a one-way driver with a returning driver. "After Googling it to confirm that it was a problem that others were experiencing, I was excited to see a blog post with hundreds of commiserators commenting on some of the most popular blog articles."īack home, the idea for MirrorTrip solidified. "On the home stretch, the penny dropped for the MirrorTrip idea," he says. To avoid the fee, the couple decided to drive several inconvenient loops around southern Europe. But it cost even more than he expected - the going rate was 1,500 euros for the drop-off fee alone. "From previous experience, I knew a one-way rental from France to Spain would be pricey," he says. He and his wife were about to rent a car for a one-way road trip through France and Spain. The idea for MirrorTrip came to Griffin on his summer vacation to Europe in 2016. In the fleet world, we're seeing how sophisticated algorithms are being used to make back-end processes more efficient." How MirrorTrip started "It alleviates the steep drop fee while relieving the company's labor to transfer the car. "The business model seems to benefit both the rental company and the renter," he says. "I think a one-way car rental is a great concept and have recommended MirrorTrip to family and friends," he says.Ĭhris Brown, editor of Auto Rental News, an industry publication, says MirrorTrip could eventually solve the car rental drop-off problem. Filkow estimated that by matching his itinerary to another driver heading in the other direction, he cut $1,000 from a typical one-way rental cost. "The reservation process was simple and straightforward," he says.īut the best part of the experience was the savings. "A great solution"Ĭolin Filkow, a retired music industry executive from Calgary, was in the market for a one-way rental from Vancouver to Calgary when he found MirrorTrip. "It's a new concept, and for them a potential edge in order to make car rentals price competitive with other intercity travel options such as bus, train, carpooling, and short-haul flights," says Griffin. You can book a MirrorTrip reservation with Hertz in western Canada, but there are plans to expand its technology nationally throughout the U.S. MirrorTrip is available as an app (iOS and Android). "The second driver returns the car to where it started from after the first driver has finished with it," he says. Griffin said the solution was to match renters with other people driving in the opposite direction. "We created it to solve a long-lived problem that my co-founders and I had run into many times before - the one-way dropoff fee that rental companies normally charge you if you want to pick a car up in one city and drop it off in another," he told me. MirrorTrip, the brainchild of serial tech entrepreneur Reece Griffin, represents a new kind of car-sharing he calls "ride switching." (It's just one of many car rental problems I deal with as a consumer advocate.) What is MirrorTrip? So car rental companies charge extra for a one-way rental, effectively discouraging the practice. It will also let you know if there are any extra charges associated with this type of rental.Fleet management systems aren't designed to find another driver who is willing to return the car. Making a reservation in advance is the best way to find out if National has a one way rental that will meet your needs.
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