Rental Car Surcharges and Taxes

[AZBuck]

On a recent business trip to Albuquerque/Santa Fe, the actual rental
cost for three days on a full-sized car (a Ford Taurus) was $134.67.

The taxes were:

State Surcharge: $12.15
Rental Tax: $ 6.73
Concession Fee: $10.17
Sales Tax: $13.32
---------
Total Taxes: $42.37

So the taxes amounted to 31.46% on top of the price of the rental.

AZBuck

[Mark Sedenquist]

AZBuck,

I really need to update my records from my last few trips -- Good reminder. And thanks for this info!

Mark

[duck]

Who do you guys recommend for one-way rental Tacoma to San Francisco. I'm more than happy to pick up and drop off at off airport location if it's gonna save me some $. I always use Enterprise with off-airport(i.e. for NY/NYC, pick up in Jersey City and save big) but they do not do one-way rentals.

Would also consider driving a car tat someone needs moved from Seattle-Tacoma area to Sanoma-San Jose area. Any info on how to hook up for 'drive my car' deal would be great.

-Duck

[thoreau_LM]

Doing some research with Hertz, I learned they have off airport terminals that rent cars much cheaper and with less taxes then airport terminals.

Not just the taxes, but the fare as well. In Chicago, you can get a much cheaper rental fare renting from Midway as opposed to OHare, even using the same company.

BTW, the rental tax in Chicago is about 18%. (this is literally Highway Robbery)

regards,
-Lance

[The Taco Monster]

Interesting. That was certainly true for one of my trips in May/June. Its a great option when it fits in your schedule. I've advocated it too.

But my cheapest ever rental was Chicago Ohare many years ago -- I had to assume a price war was going on ... :-) Washington Dulles had really low rates one summer. So it pays to shop around. Also the airports have the best hours, if you don't arrive during prime time. Eg: I arrived in Oklahoma City last year, just after lunch on a Summer Saturday ... the only Hertz rental open in the city was the airport location -- fortunately I'd done enough research to know that ahead of time. At OKC, btw, the cars were walking distance from terminal building.

[daawgon]

Those of you planning to visit the Pacific Northwest, I just wanted to clue you in to where you could rent a car with no extra charges at all, and no taxes as well. If you fly into Portland/PDX, you can rent a car in Beaverton, OR with no additional charges/taxes at all. There is light rail service directly from the PDX airport terminal to Beaverton, where you walk approx. 1/2 mile to either Enterprise or Budget agents on Canyon Blvd. I suggest you use Mapquest to help you locate the vicinity.

In addition, we have a fabulous market where you can get a free lunch of quality food samples (best on Saturdays). This pre-Thanksgiving week, we had a wonderful mini-plate of turkey, 2 dressings, gravy and cranberry sauce presented to us at the front door. In addition, they had a wine tasting and a dessert sampling in the store as well.

[quinncallahan]

The Under 25 fee is bushleague for those of us "young" adults that have a fine driving record and alot of driving experience. Unforunately there is no way around it though. The one thing I have learned is that it varies by each company in each state, and even sometimes as the taxes by each branch. I know in Louisianna National Rent-a-Car is a wonderful ten dollars a day and that if you research the different companies and branches you can often (though not alway) find someone that offers a under 25 fee of less than 25 dollars a day.

~quinn

[Mark Sedenquist]

The one thing I have learned is that it varies by each company in each state,

What I have learned is that posing questions to real people often results in much better savings than anything one can find online. Welcome to the Great American RoadTrip Forum and thanks for your insight.

Mark

[RoadTripper 912]

I rented a car from Budget.

It was a terrible experience for the most part. * Just little things like:
- They never went over the rental time / estimate costs.

- They never went around the car with me to point out dings so I was so stressed worrying about ones I noticed.

- They were hard to pin down on the phone.

- They didn't reply to my email to customer service trying to sort my issues.

- They ended up phoning at 5am CA time to say the car was "late" - when in fact I'd phoned them two days earlier to confirm it was being returned 2 days EARLIER - to San Jose (they were still expecting it to be returned to NY) Nevermind it's confusing and it was frustrating and it was by far the worst part of the whole entire month-long journey.

Now for the money - they charged me the following for one a month rental:

$ 1059.99 - rental
$ 300.00 - one way fee
$ 194.21 - 14.28% fee (Fuel service fee?)
$ 207.87 - tax @ 13.375

$ 1762.07

That's my car rental two cents at any rate. I won't use them again - though customer service on the West Coast (San Jose Intl)* was far superior to what I experienced at LaGuardia. I am sure there will be other people who had a great experience with Budget, but I simply am not one of them...

C'est la vie!

Cali

[PNW Judy]

What a huge expense! I'm sorry your experience was so poor. I hope more people report back their experiences in the future so we can get an idea of what companies are good to do business with and which aren't. I'm sorry you had to find out the hard way.