Rental Car Surcharges and Taxes

Hey,
We have just booked our car rental through a travel agent. We collect the car at Phoenix airport and drop off at Las Vegas airport 10 days later.

The driver is under 25, and we were originally quoted as having to pay £120 (approx $196) of charges payable locally and an additional £350 (approx $570)surcharge for the driver who is 24 years old.

The rental only came to £317 (approx $516) with insurance included we thought it was quite funny the charges cost more than the actual rental of the car. So the total stood at £787 (approx $1,283) thats nearly more than double the cost of the original rental price on charges.

Luckily the agent managed to speak to the company (Alamo) and they have agreed to drop the under 25 charge for us since the driver has held her license for 5 years. We of course are waiting for this in writing, as it will totally cripple us moneywise if we turn up at Phoenix and discover we have to pay hundreds of pounds out extra.

I am concerned that we may have to pay an extra charge now for dropping off in Las Vegas. Would this charge of been presented to us when we got the quote and booked since the quote is based on us hiring in PHX and dropping off in Vegas? or will it be a nasty surprise at the start/end of our trip?

I would be cautious about those "Dropped fees" It's actually not uncommon for the surcharges to exceed the cost of the rental. I think you need to be prepared to pay the surcharges and perhaps you will be pleasantly surprised.

Mark

I'm really glad i found this site now, it has been really useful and i will definatly be phoning the agent as soon as possible I was there while she was on the phone to Alamo and def said they'd pass over the charge.. hmm. but like you say if we expect to pay the charges it may be a great end to the trip to have some extra cash to burn in Vegas and if we do have to pay we haven't lost anything really.

It is certainly a good idea to get the "no underage fee" deal in writing. Remember, most people in the US get their drivers license when they are 16, and you generally can't even rent a car with a surcharge until you are 21 - so that's 5 years of experience for most people. The underage fee last until you are 25, so again for most americans, that's a whole 9 years of experience before the fee goes away. Of course, the fee is tied to age, not experience, so you can be a 25 year old driver who got their license 8 minutes ago, and get a better rate than someone who is 24 and has had a full license for more than 8 years!

Regardless of the those things, the fees should be presented up front, and I would want to get everything I could in writing before landing in PHX. Once you have the car, your rental paperwork will spell out all of the costs, and you should know everything you'll have to pay before you drop off the car.

Not surprisingly, with many areas having big budget problems, governments are turning once again to tourists to fix their money problems.

Milwaukee will apparently see car rental fees jump by up to 800%, which now makes the taxes and fees 40% or more of the rental cost! Sadly, as this newspaper article shows, several other cities are also charging nearly as much!

Hi,

we are three guys form Germany doing a road trip in September starting in Los Angeles. We rented a car over a german internet site and got a voucher for Alamo Car Rental. We already paid to the broker and the voucher includes a collision damage waiver and a second driver.
It would like to hear some advice from you to avoid any additional costs Alamo might try to charge from us. We know we have to pay for the full fuel tank at departure, which is ok. However we are afraid they might try to charge extra services or insurances we did not take or were unaware of when signing.

bye,
fezboa

A voucher ?

The only way to get the right advice is to contact the broker, or Alamo directly, but have you not got a renal contract with all the details ?

You say you are starting in LA but are you finishing there ? If not "one way drop off fees" could be possible if not already stated/agreed upon. Are any drivers under the age of 25 years ? If so you could have "young driver fee's" unless already stated/agreed.

I can help a little here.

If traveling to Chicago, rent a car from Oak Park. Oak Park is just west of the City of Chicago and can be accessed from the blue line trains from either Midway or O'hare. The 2.25 it will cost to get from the airport to the rental company in Oak Park is worth it. Even though it's going to take 90 minutes. You can save 50-100 bucks on a week long rental.

Denver. You can save money on the rental by renting from downtown Denver. I don't remember who much I saved, but it had to be close to 100 bucks a week. A bus will take you from the airport to Cherry Creek Mall bus terminal. There's a few rental car companies right around the corner.

Las Vegas. If you're heading there, search online for Vegas specific sites like this one. I always get a car from the airport for 9-15 dollars a day. I don't remember the name of the sites, but they are out there. You can even save on hotels.

My main advice and this is how I've always done it. You should reserve a rental car first. Even if you only have a range of travel dates, reserve a car per week for your range dates. If you're going sometime between July and September, then you are allowed to make 8 reservations. Make the reservation(s) as far in advance as possible. Just remember to cancel all reservations that will be unused. This will keep the rental company(s) happy.

The 2nd thing is to always look for a lower price every week once you have your reservation(s). By reserving first and committing later, checking up for better deals will save you money based on the original reservation total. My example is the reservation I made in February at $181.00. Last week I found one for $165.00, and about an hour ago, I found another rental car for $139.00. So, From my stand point, I have saved $42.00 on the cost of my rental car. Just $15.00 in taxes and surcharge.

Quote:

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By reserving first and committing later, checking up for better deals will save you money based on the original reservation total.

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This is a good idea, booking your plane ticket and car rentals in advance can get you a much cheaper deal whenever you're on vacation.

Adding to the rental car bit:

If you are a member of Costco, be sure to check out Costco Travel before you rent a car someplace. We were just looking to make a reservation for our November air trip to the Midwest. I checked different rental car sites, such as Enterprise's site, Hertz's site, and a few others. I also checked some other conglomeration sites, as we were looking for either a small SUV or a mini-van. The prices were outrageous! Then my husband remembered an article we had read, about Costco Travel, and decided to check that one. WOW! The end result was that we reserved a regular-sized SUV at $200 less for the week than any other site, including Alamo's itself. My husband made the comment, "That just paid for our Costco membership, for two years -- this year, and when it comes up for renewal in Feb."

But we will keep checking for better deals. Unfortunately, over Thanksgiving, that may be fairly useless. A lot of folks are flying over that holiday.



Donna