How to price one-way hires and relocations

By the DayRunner team · 7 November 2026

Set one-way fees by direction, from what it costs you to bring a car back. Count how many cars move each way between your depots each month, work out the net imbalance, cost a relocation, and spread that cost across the one-way hires that cause it. Charge the busy direction, and make the quiet direction free or cheaper, because every hire that way saves you a trip.

The same method works for car hire and campervans.

Why flat one-way fees go wrong

Plenty of operators charge one flat fee for any one-way hire. It's simple. It's also wrong in both directions at once.

In the busy direction, the fee often doesn't cover the cost of bringing the car back. In the quiet direction, you're charging people for a trip that helps you. They book with someone else, and you pay a staff member to drive the car instead.

See one-way fee for the term.

The method

1. Count your flows

   Last year, by month: pick-ups at each depot, split by where they were dropped off.

2. Find the net imbalance

   For each pair of depots, the difference between cars going each way.

3. Cost a relocation

   What it costs to move one car back, by staff drive and by relocation deal.

4. Check the value at each end

   Is the extra car worth more where it ended up?

5. Set the fee for the busy direction

   Share of cars that need moving × cost per move, less any value at the destination.

6. Set the quiet direction

   Free, or a small discount, to pull cars back for you.

7. Review monthly

   Flows change with the seasons.

Step 1 and 2: count flows and find the imbalance

Export last year's bookings with pick-up depot, drop-off depot and pick-up date. Pivot it into a matrix for each month.

Hypothetical example for a fleet with depots in Auckland and Queenstown, one month:

20 cars went south, 8 came north. Queenstown gained 12 cars. Auckland lost 12.

That 12 is what matters. You either bring them back, leave them there, or let next month's flow do it.

Step 3: cost a relocation

Work out both options per car. All hypothetical:

The deal is much cheaper in cash. But the car is off rent for longer, and the deal might not get taken. Price the days off rent at what that car would have earned, in the busy season at least.

Step 4: is the car worth more where it ended up?

Before you pay to move a car, check whether you need to. A car stuck at a depot where rates are higher might be worth leaving there, if the demand is there to rent it.

The Rate Pulse sweep of 7 Nov 2026 shows how different the ends can be. The compact median daily rate was NZ$139 at Auckland, NZ$192 at Christchurch and NZ$210 at Queenstown. That's one November snapshot, for hires returned at the same airport, so it isn't a one-way price. But it tells you the market at the far end is paying NZ$71 more a day than at home for the same car type that fortnight.

Higher rates only help if the car actually rents. Check your own fleet utilisation at the destination. If Queenstown was already running at 95%, the extra cars rent and you may not need to move them yet. If it was at 60%, the extra cars sit, and you need to move them.

Step 5: the fee for the busy direction

The basic formula:

One-way fee = (cars that need moving ÷ one-way hires in that direction) × cost per move, less value at the destination

Worked through for the hypothetical fleet above:

• 20 one-way hires went Auckland to Queenstown
• 12 of them need to come back
• 12 ÷ 20 = 60% of those hires create a relocation
• Mix of moves: say half staff drive, half deal. Average cost = (NZ$1,300 + NZ$350) ÷ 2 = NZ$825
• 60% × NZ$825 = NZ$495 per one-way hire

If Queenstown demand can absorb 4 of the 12 extra cars, only 8 need moving. 8 ÷ 20 = 40%, and the fee drops to NZ$330.

So a fee between NZ$330 and NZ$495 covers your cost, depending on demand at the other end. A flat NZ$150 fee would leave you about NZ$180 to NZ$345 short on every one of those 20 hires.

Step 6: the quiet direction

Every Queenstown to Auckland hire saves you a relocation worth up to NZ$825 in this example. So you can afford to:

• drop the one-way fee to zero for that direction
• offer a small discount on the daily rate
• push it on your website for the months when cars pile up

Even a NZ$100 discount is a good trade if it saves a NZ$825 move. Just don't advertise it in months when the flow runs the other way.

Relocation deals: setting them up well

A relocation deal is a car or van hired at a token rate, to be returned at a set depot within a set number of days. Good rules:

• Set a tight window. Days allowed = driving days plus one or two.
• Pay or share fuel and ferry. Without it, few people take them.
• List them early. As soon as you know a car will be stranded.
• Don't undercut your one-way hires. If a customer can get the same trip as a relocation for NZ$1 a day, they won't pay a one-way fee. Keep relocations short and fixed.

A one-way pricing sheet you can copy

Do one row pair per route, per month. Update it monthly from last month's actual flows.

Mistakes we see

• One flat fee for every route. It's too low one way and too high the other.
• Ignoring seasons. Flows can reverse between summer and winter.
• Moving cars that would have rented where they were. Check utilisation at the destination first.
• Forgetting days off rent. A staff drive costs a car for two days. In peak, that's real money.
• Relocation deals that compete with paid hires. Keep them short and specific.

Checklist

• Flow matrix built for each month, from last year's bookings
• Net imbalance worked out per route
• Relocation cost worked out for staff drives and deals
• Destination utilisation checked before moving cars
• One-way fee set per direction, per month
• Quiet direction priced to pull cars back
• Relocation deal rules written down

For more on fleet movement and rates, see campervan pricing and fleet mix. If you want flow and relocation numbers pulled from your booking system each month, that's part of our revenue management work.

Questions