Rental Car Surcharges and Taxes

[Mark Sedenquist]

I rented a car from Budget.

I am sorry you had a bad experience. For the future and for others considering renting a vehicle a few observations:

- They never went over the rental time / estimate costs.

That really isn't the job of the counter agent -- the renter has the responsibility to ask questions if the rate is unclear.

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

The only rental companies that do this are the "budget" carriers like Enterprise Rent A Car -- Major chains don't worry about the little stuff and neither should you. I have rented hundreds of vehicles over the years from major firms and have never been charged for anything ding (and I never bothered to look at the car when I picked it up either...)

- They were hard to pin down on the phone.

This is odd and not good. You might consider contacting Christopher Elliott, he is a colleague of mine and an expert at resolving issues like you seem to have had with this rental. He writes a Troubleshooter column and if you write to him, I bet he can assist.

Mark

[Midwest Michael]

I'm sorry that Budget was such a hassle for you. I certainly understand how that can be an unwanted stress on a trip.

I will say that I have used Budget before without any problems. Although its been about 5 years and at the time I chose them mostly because they had the smallest under 25 fee.

It also does sound like you at least got a good rate. Most people who've posted rates for a 1 way, 1 month trip generally are quoted more than $2000. It might not make up for the lousy service, but at least its something.

[lhuff]

As some know I am a CPA and I got my license at 24 and have worked as an accountant since I was 21. My first real job at the CPA firm was to perform an audit of a car rental company. I got the biggest laugh when I learned that I was compentant enough to audit the financials of the company but not trusted enough to rent a car from them. They had a strict no rental policy for anyone under 25. And it was a National Car Rental Franchise in Louisiana.

[Mark Sedenquist]

I got the biggest laugh when I learned that I was compentant enough to audit the financials of the company but not trusted enough to rent a car from them. They had a strict no rental policy for anyone under 25. And it was a National Car Rental Franchise in Louisiana.

I loved this story.

mark

[loola]

I work for a travel agency and therefore make most of the pre-arrangement for the trip through work. I rent a car from Alamo-National via our local supplier which gives me a significant discount on a deal which includes insurance (plus waive of damage), two additional drivers and a tank of gas for free.

However, the longest rental period available through the local agency is 56 days. Not having any concrete plans for the trip besides a conference in Vegas in Mid-April, we had initially thought to drop off the car whcuh we'd pick up in Chicago in Vegas tgen pick up another car there and drop off that second car in Chicago. This would have cost $1000 plus tax.

This forced us to play around and actually plan, so we ended up renting a car for 56 days, pick up and drop off in Chicago, and then pick up another car in Chicago for 14 days and drop it off in NYC. The drop off charge would be $200 plus tax but taking a plane to New York would have cost even more.
We've been told that we can try and baragin at the rental station - perhaps take a smaller car or something in lieu of the drop off charge. Is it doable?

[Midwest Michael]

Well, it certainly never hurts to ask if you can get some sort of a deal. However, $200 for a drop fee from Chi to NYC doesn't sound unreasonable to me and I don't think you'll have much luck getting it changed.

Part of your problem is that most rental car companies keep their fleets at specific locations, and one way rentals are typically returned to their original location. Therefore, the rental car companies additional costs for renting a car one way are the same regardless of what size of car you are dealing with.

But like I said before, it never hurts to try and negotiate a deal. The worst that can happen is you'll end up paying full price.

[oggy]

I dont know too much about hiring face to face as I have only hired cars twice, both of which I picked up in California and dropped off in New York. I went through, http://www.airline-network.co.uk. As i am from England and our insurance is so different to that in the US I email all the information to the AAA to ask their opinion. I got a reply telling me that the deal I had got was about as comprehensive as I could hope for. The cost was not very expensive either. The biggest bonus was, both times they forgot to charge the one way drop off fee.

[sunpo]

Oggy... I am planning on renting a car in San Francisco to drop of in New York, can I ask you:

1# What the name of the car rental company was that you used as I see the link provided different options?

2# Was there any other charges on top of what you where quoted or charged from the online booking?

Many thanks
Mike

[mikphire]

I'm sorry to hear about Roadtripper912's experience with Budget.

My experience with them was pretty good, I got an almost brand new Hyundai Sonata, racked up 11,000 miles and had dinged the front bumper pretty good, but they didn't charge extra, didn't even bat on eye at the miles and didn't even notice that the front was a bit 'out of place'.

Maybe it's where you rented it- you mentioned LaGuardia... I rented mine in Long Island, don't have the specific stats on me, but it wasn't unreasonable. Plus, we used coupons we found for them and got a discount- they seem pretty good with honouring the coupons. You can get them on various travel sites, just takes poking around a bit.
And they seem to have the best rates in New York so far.

[RoadTrippers A & R]

The worst abuse we've heard is Whistler Canada.