Just booked a car for an upcoming trip to Maui (yay me!)
So I have not paid yet. But the rental company kindly laid out for me exactly what I’m going to pay, so I will not be surprised:
Cost of rental: 277.00 USD
Taxes & Surcharges: 94.47 USD
$3.00 per day (Hawaii State Surcharge)
(up to) $0.60 per day (Vehicle License Fee)
$1.00 per day (Customer Facility Charge)
11.11% (Concessionaire Fee)
Tax (4.166 %) 13.10 USD
so 25% taxes. I’m not at all surprised, having rented cars before. But I’m glad to know the charges up front, and I’m also glad to know exactly where my $ is going. For example, I now know that the Airport gets $30.47 of my money.
I’m not contesting how much I paid. As I said, “it’s not a ton of money”, I can afford it. I don’t want to live in a world where the challenge of life is having to be aware of every minutia of every action.
Let me ask you, do you want to go to the grocery store to buy a can of corn for 20 cents only to get to the cash register and find out that there is:
Energy fee for lighting and heating the store.
Stocking fee for putting the can on the shelf.
Receiving fee for taking the can off of the delivery truck
Cleaning fee for mopping the floor.
Cart usage fee for putting the can of corn in a shopping cart.
Checkout fee for ringing up your purchase.
Parking fee for using their parking lot.
Lighted parking fee for having lights in the parking lot.
Lease fee for the store having to pay their rent to the mall.
. . . and on and on and on.
So they advertised a can of corn for 20 cents and you ended up paying $1.50. Is that the type of world you want to live in? Is that what you want to have to think about when you decide to shop in store A or store B?
Spartydog, if supermarkets had bullshit taxes put on them by local government, like a $3.00/day Hawaii state surcharge, or a stupid 11.11% “fee” charged by an airport authority, then yes, I would expect them to break out these taxes and show them to me on the final bill.
I’d like to know that the store got .20 cents for the can of corn, and the local and state taxing authorities took the rest. Then I’d know exactly who to be pissed off at:
Hint, it’s not the store, it’s the local and state authorities that see the operation as a cash cow.
Yes, but this should be done up front. Quoting the “price” and then only adding that stuff on after the customer has committed to the deal is bullshit.
Also, not all of the ridiculous charges are simply government impositions. For example:
WTF?
I have to pay an extra fee for you to maintain your facilities? I was under the impression that maintaining your facilities was an expected cost of doing business. Vons has to “cover maintenance on the facilities,” but i don’t face a surcharge added by Vons to my Fudgsicles when i get to the cash register.
McDonald’s and Papa John’s are franchises too, where many things are dictated by coroporate, but they manage to build the cost of maintenance on the facilities into the prices of the Quarter Pounders and the Cheese Pizzas they sell.
“Daily Frequent Flier Fee (because I wanted the frequent flier miles) - $1.50”
Did you pay this fee for each day you rented the car? Because frequent flyer miles are worth one or two cents per mile, so unless you’re paying $75 per day for the rental, that’s a ridiculous amount to pay.
Sure, but McDonald’s and Papa John’s are able to dictate the prices they charge for pizzas. Rental Car companies have to report to the airport and to the Comptrollers office exactly how much was collected for Facility Charges. We are not permitted to simply increase the rental amount to cover this cost.
I was actually talking to our president about this thread this afternoon and in his opinion these fees are not constitutional and he’s not real happy about them either. Taxation without representation and all that. But we don’t have a choice in the matter.
When I was 18 back in the 80s, I rented a car for a weekend. College freshman, first credit card, peer pressure, etc. A few years later at 21 or 22 I went to rent a car and was told that I have to be 25. What was up with that? I went to the same company(Avis) also. State of MI BTW.
Actually they are shown. Well, they’re shown if you make your reservation online. I just went to the Budget website, and looked up pricing at Orlando Int’l Airport and at some place out on West Colonial Drive. I selected the cheapest car at both locations, and refused any optional upgrades. On both sites, they told me the base rate, the taxes and fees, and the total due for a one-day rental. Furthermore, the taxes and fees had a link to break out how much was taxes, and how much was fees. And the fees line drilled down even further to itemize those fees for me.*
Go ahead and try it; it’s perfectly safe. No reservation got created by any of my researches, and I never was asked for a single bit of personal information.
And I will be willing to assure you that, were you to do the research on their telephone reservation system, you would be able to obtain the same information from the reservation agent.**
*I’ll concede that one of the line items was “fees”. But still, we’re not talking about the kind of opacity implied by your post.
** My reasoning being that, until they’ve got your credit card number, it’s not in their best interest to behave like pond scum toward you.
I’m very much of the (outspoken on these boards, at least) belief that advertised prices should be all-inclusive. Of every. single thing. No exceptions.
So, if I see “Car rental from $35 per day!” then I should reasonably be able to expect to pay $35- and ONLY $35- to rent a car from that company for one day.
As a consumer, I really, honestly do not care what the cost breakdown of that $35 is. I don’t care if the actual cost to rent the car for the day is $14.85 and the rest of it is Renting Space At The Airport fees or any of those other things that really should be considered “normal costs of doing business”.
Since I can’t not pay the “statutory charges and taxes” components of the price, then businesses should advertise the rental price as $35 and just have “This price includes statutory charges of $X and GST of $3.50” on the receipt. All the other expenses should be built into the price, as in nearly every other business.
My “bottom line”, as a consumer, is “how much money, in total, do I have to provide to this business for this good or service?” It’s dishonest, IMHO, to say “Car Rental from $35 per day!” and then add all the fees, charges, and taxes on top to the point where the total price comes to closer to $50 per day. The customer isn’t paying $35 per day, they’re paying $50, and no amount of hand-waving or trying to pretend statutory fees and charges somehow “don’t count” (because they’re not going to the business, one presumes) will change that.
However the business, the rental company for example, has no control over taxes and, in many cases, fees. They have to charge them but they didn’t impose them.
I just got a fantastic offer from Av*s! $10.00 off my next rental (I rented a car from them in Minneapolis, in 2006!). Of course, it doesnt apply on weekends, and must be used only if they have a 1990 Daewoo Leganza on the lot…
And yet, mysteriously, those fees are never advertised, and are never mentioned until the customer is billed.
WHy, it’s almost as if the entire industry is fundamentally dishonest, and you’re covering for it by claiming somebody else makes you do it. Because until you cite me chapter and verse of your laws, I won’t believe that somehow somebody makes you break out some undefined “tire/battery” fee seperately, or that you actually have to charge specifically for frequent flier miles.
Don’t even try to pretend to me that this was somehow foisted off on your innocent company. I don’t pretend your business is something new or unusual for you, and I don’t pretend you’re innocent fucking lambs, either. Well, you mgiht be fucking innocent lambs.
I agree with Martini Enfield, and this doesn’t change my opinion.
If a company’s advertised price must include taxes and fees, then that applies to its competition as well, so there is no damage done to any particular business. Differences in the voluntary, or company-selected, portion of the price will still be evident in the advertised cost; the only difference is to the consumer, who has an assurance currently lacking in the extreme: that the total he will pay bears any resemblance at all to the advertised price which attracted him to the company’s services.
I will agree that the rental companies (for the most part) have no control over the taxes imposed on them by local/state authorities. I also agree with Martini Enfield that it would be good if an advertised price could be the ACTUAL bottom line price that a consumer would pay.
In the case of care rental companies though, they operate out of many different locals with complex and widely varying taxes and fees. For example, if I want to rent a car through an airport, there is a fee charged the rental company by the airport authority that must be recouped. No such fee exists at other rental locations in the city. Some rental locations have special city fees or state taxes. Others do not. For this reason, it would be impossible for a national company to advertise a single rate.
I don’t know the Avis policies, but our minimum age is 18. You are, however, subject to a “young driver” fee unless you are military traveling on orders.
