No, it’s not an option to pay the ferry/airport fee if you’re picking up from an airport. So how is a company supposed to advertise an all-inclusive price in Auckland? It will be different depending on where you’re picking the car up. Maybe fine print at the bottom of the ad?
A $76/day car would be:
Cars at $85.50/day*
*plus additional one-time charge of $39.38 if picking up from an airport or ferry
Perhaps this is the solution. But the ads would be confusing.
That’s usually how they do it here, FWIW. The price, with an asterisked exception for something notable like picking it up from an airport. So you’d have:
"Cars from $85.50/day*
*Charges apply for airport pick-ups. See our website or call 555-RENTCAR for more information"
Which says “If you pick this car up from a non-airport location, it’s $85.50 a day, but if you get it from the airport, there will be an additional charge. We have nothing to hide and are happy to provide the specific information to you.”
Which is probably why you never see ads like, “Rent a car for up to $104 a day!!!”
You are correct on Canada. Advertised prices on most goods (there are a few exceptions) do not include provincial and federal taxes and other necessary fees added at point of sale. It’s been a while since I rented a car here, but I do recall, for example, the advertised “From $35 per day” mysteriously becoming something like $50 or $60 per day once all taxes and fees were added.
Help me out here. That $4.00 airport access fee. What, exactly is it 11.11% of? If should be 11.11% of $36.00, but there is no $36.00 item on that breakout. 
What amazes me is that people are OK with this.
Really, taking away handwavy defences like “Well, the money is going to the Government and not the business” and “everyone knows the local sales tax is X%”, the reality is people on these boards inexplicably seem happy for- even supportive of- businesses lying to them about how much it will cost to acquire a good or service.
If you advertise (say) a car rental as costing $35 a day, but there are various statutory fees and charges on top of that which result in the price to the consumer being $51.72, then that business is lying (or, at best, telling fibs) about the price.
I realise in the US and Canada there are myriad local sales taxes and so on, but we live in a computerised age and there’s no excuse whatsoever for individual stores/branches/outlets not being able to simply add the relevant taxes and fees to the price ticket when they’re printing it out. After all, if the computer can calculate the fees and taxes at point of sale, then it can be done with the price tickets are printed out.
I’m prepared to cut a little bit of slack to internet sales because of the difficulties in knowing where a customer is purchasing from until the sale is nearly complete, but for brick and mortar stores, there’s no excuse for not displaying an all-inclusive price, IMHO.
FYI, airlines have now been forced to advertise their all-inclusive prices so that you can compare apples to apples. The same should be done for rental cars and hotels, IMO. If you have a mandatory tax/fee, it should be included in the total.
I don’t think this is true. They typically give a base fare and then qualify it with something like “each way based on round trip purchase” or “From $39.”
Go to Travelocity or Expedia, etc. and search for a flight. If you enter a specific itinerary, they now list a base price AND an all-in price including taxes and fees, so that you can compare apples to apples. They used to only list the base price.
Thanks a bunch. If I get charged a cart usage fee the next time I go to the grocery store, I’ll know who they got that idea from.
Not quite the same thing, as you get your coin back (provided you return the trolley). You can also shop in store using hand-baskets at no charge (at least, you can here). What the earlier poster was talking about was an arbitrary, non-refundable charge for merely because trolleys were provided “for your convenience”, as the cliche goes.
A better parallel might be stores charging customers for the presence of air conditioning/heating in their stores. You can’t not use that “service”, but it should be considered a “normal cost of doing business” and built into the store’s profit margins anyway.
Another thing to think about is that the companies want to show and shock you with the added taxes - so you have a reason to bitch and moan to the taxing authorities about it.
by separating the stuff out, the car rental companies may be saving themselves alot of consumer angst: “don’t blame us for your 75 dollar rental! we would gladly rent you the car for 45.99 - but look at all of these fees we are, by law, forced to tag on”
it makes it easier for them to compete on prices if they break out what they are forcing you to pay by some third party. if the price is unified and all costs are all rolled into one, I won’t care that 30% of my cost is going to the government - i’m just going to blame it all on the company for overpricing their products and services.
Authorities whose response to said complaints will likely be “You know what? We don’t care. But thanks for sharing all the same.”
Fees that all businesses in that field are obliged to tag on. And even if the business does try and say “We’d gladly rent you a car for $46 but there’s lots of taxes!” then people might very well say “Well, lower your pre-tax price accordingly” or “The fact of the matter is you can’t rent us a car for $46 and it’s misleading to pretend you can, so pull the other one- it’s got bells on.”
That’s why there needs to be legislation (as there is in Australia, NZ, the UK, and South Africa) to say “the price MUST be all-inclusive”. That way consumers are comparing apples to apples. And so what if 30% of the price is going to Government? There’s nothing you can do about it. Most people’s concern is “how much do I have to pay to acquire this good or service?” The breakdown of the price is largely irrelevant, IMHO.
Much ado about nothing, IMO. If I want to know exactly how much my rental will be, I’ll scroll past the “base price” right down to the “total” line. In between the two, I’ll find the breakdown if I want it, but the total price is always available and easily accessible. I have no problem comparing apples to apples.
I’d disagree with your point that the breakdown is irrelevant. Some people do like to know where their money is going; others don’t care. That’s why you’re offered both the breakdown and the total price when you search.
I get that you like the way your country does it. But I don’t think many Americans are having problems understanding the way the current system works. We all understand that a dollar menu item really isn’t going to cost just a dollar, so there’s no need to have McDonalds make regional ads for the $1.03 menu, the $1.05 menu, or the $1.10 menu.
Not true. In some instances, this would lead to franchises competing against one another. If the airport Budget is offering a rental at $62.31, but the location three miles down the road that isn’t subject to the City/Local Tax or the Airport Concession Fee is offering the same rental at $48.03, then you get a lot of folks demanding that the airport location price match their sister location, etc. Yeah, I know it’s Not Your Damn Problem, but I do feel the need to point out that your quoted statement is false.
I’m not talking solely about car rentals (I think the thread has moved on from that). I’m talking about misleading advertising- “RENT A CAR FOR $35 A DAY!” as an OP-related example, when this is patently false as the amount of money that the customer is paying is much higher. Same thing when you go to McDonalds and that $5.95 value meal isn’t $5.95, it’s $6.42. As far as I’m concerned, that’s misleading and lying to customers.
I’ve got no problem with rental car firms not advertising any price until you select your location and intended use info and then providing a breakdown of the cost. That’s fine because the consumer isn’t being misled-
Heaven forbid they just adjust their prices so it all evens out anyway and the same item costs $1 everywhere.
I realise most of you guys in the US are used to this sort of thing, but really, are you honestly telling me that you’d rather not just see a displayed price and know that’s all you have to pay, inclusive of all taxes and charges?
In which case the simple response is a disclaimer saying “Sorry, price-matching doesn’t apply to airport locations due to [Something about airport concession taxes and charges].” And a smart company would set it up so both locations had the same price anyway- or, better yet, not have two branches so close to each other.
*Provided that $35 will, in its entirety, allow you to rent a car at a non-airport location
As an addendum to my previous post, I realise that it’s highly unlikely McDonalds are going to take any sort of hit on their profits simply in the interests of Truth In Advertising, but I think that at the very least they should be advertising the all-inclusive price at store level.
That way they can advertise "$1 Cheeseburgers"Local taxes may apply at National level, but when customers go into the store, there, on the board, is the all-inclusive price of $1.05 or whatever it needs to be.
Its surprising to me that people can NOT want an all inclusive price. Any compulsory charges should be included in the advertising.
Wouldn’t it be easier? For regional differences in sales taxes etc - I would think its pretty easy to get around, not least of which displaying the actual price on the instore menu or such?
If there was ever an example of someone claiming something in order to precisely fit the point they are trying to make, without actually believing what they are saying, this is it.
No, I’m telling you I honestly don’t care. And I don’t think it’s misleading.
I will speak for myself, and probably others, when I say that the extra .47 cents in your burger example isn’t misleading and dishonest because I’ve been accustomed to believing (and expecting) that that money is going to the taxing authority, not the business. So I don’t feel like I’m cheated at all - the business still collects my 5.95, the price that I agreed to pay for the actual good.
To me, the sales tax is incidental and irrelevant in my decision making process (the “which company should i go with” phase, not the “should I buy” phase).
That’s why I would prefer the “cost” component of the price to be separated from the “tax” component of the price - it allows me to shop on something that I care about (the actual cost of the service/good I am purchasing) instead of having to figure out how something that I don’t care about (the fees that are not going to the business) are affecting the cost of the actual thing I am consuming.
As to your first point, you’ve already addressed in your reply the fact that no company would (or should, for that matter) take a hit in the name of equalizing prices to account for regional tax differences.
As to your second about smart companies not having two branches so close together, that’s just absurd. Starbucks and McDonald’s are just two examples of businesses that operate locations successfully as close as across the street from one another.
I’d rather not deal with the hassle of making a change when it’s really a non-issue to begin with.
“Easier” for the consumer, maybe. But national brands thrive on the ease of national advertising, and McDonald’s benefits in having to produce one “dollar menu” commercial rather than individual, region-specific ads.
Of course, they could always play it easy and just turn it into the $1.20 menu nationwide to account for realizing the same profit in 20% Sales Tax Land, but that increases my (the consumer) total cost here in 5% Sales Tax Land. Easier for them, costlier for me.