The major agencies do not charge all of them, but you can expect to see at least a few on your next bill. We thought that was just a cost of doing business.
What's it for? To keep the rental car company's lights on. Why we hate them: The concession fees, licensing cost and energy surcharges just cover operational costs, which you'd normally assume was factored into the rental cost of the car much like the "resort fees" should have been factored into the cost of the room.
But these passed-on overhead charges can raise the advertised cost of the rental by 25 percent. The insurance coverage you buy at the rental counter largely mimics the auto coverage you probably already have, except there's no deductible.
For that, you pay annualized rates that knock your socks off. That's roughly 30 percent more than the retail price of buying the Hyundai Accent you just rented. The airport concession and other cost recovery fees are neither negotiable nor avoidable. While some off-site rental car companies reduce the airport concession recovery fee, the search and inconvenience of getting to these remote locations can eliminate any real savings. You're stuck; just budget for them.
On the other hand, the add-ons for insurance supplements, including the loss damage waiver, are easy to decline. If you have auto insurance at home, it covers you on the road.
Pay with a credit card, and you get additional coverage from most major card issuers. Car rental salespeople will warn that neither your insurance nor the credit card will cover their loss of use for the vehicle, which they might try to levy at a ludicrous daily price if you're in an accident. But this may well be more inconvenience than economic threat, since their loss-of-use claims would have to be substantiated if pressed. The fees: It doesn't matter whether the company selling you a bundle of services, including clearer television, high-speed Internet and telephone services, is a cable company, Dish or DirectTV.
You want to record TV shows? Why we hate them: When you're buying "high speed" Internet, you actually expect it to be fast. Who knew it could be almost as poky as dial-up? And what household, beside your great grandmother's, has just one television? Meanwhile, if you want to cancel your cable or satellite service because it has so many outages that you're favorite show has turned into static, you can't leave without a staggering fee. Satellite companies make the cancellation fees charged by cell phone makers look puny.
If you're not willing to go Ted Kaczynski and cut off all connections with the outside world, make up a list of what's important to you and use it while shopping. Things to ask about: DVR rental fees, costs for additional phone lines, Internet speed, installation charges, and whether you'll have to sign a contract.
The fees are mostly unavoidable, but you can get a better deal if you're careful. Also, make sure that you shop around whenever your exit fees are about to expire. Airports are expensive places to build and operate, particularly with huge unified car rental facilities and shuttle buses to move passengers around. To pay for those expensive services and billion-dollar buildings, airports charge car renters a wide variety of fees to cover their expenses. Sales Tax 6. The charges for civic projects like convention centers and stadiums, as well as the increased licensing fees for rental cars, are particularly galling to the American Car Rental Association.
It views the taxes as "discriminatory", applied unfairly to one group of taxpayersin this case, car rental customers. All these fees are likely to deter some folks from renting, meaning their overall profits decrease. To fight this trend, the major car rental agencies have formed a trade group called Curb Automobile Rental Taxes , to direct consumers' anger toward local governments and away from the rental agencies themselves.
However, that seems to rarely happen, and the money is instead directed to a different project. New York State, for example, has an additional 6 percent state-wide "special" sales tax on the rental cars, in place since , with an additional 6 percent "special supplemental" tax added in on cars rented in New York City and several surrounding counties.
So why don't car rental agencies roll all these fees into the cost of the car rental itself? According to Faulkner, it's so governments can make sure they're getting all the money to which they are entitled. Read More. Raunak Sandal answered. Gauravv Bajaj answered. Rentals What is vlf rec for car rentals? Asked by: Carina Pillai. Gian Virk. Kumar Answered:.
0コメント