Other Car Rental Programs (ie. Alamo, Enterprise) - Concession Recovery Fee?

Not a frequent traveler and recently rented a car through Southwest Airlines website from Alamo and everything went pretty well. One thing that bothered me was the price charged at Alamo for a rental was different that the price quoted at the Southwest website. The added item was a "Concession Recovery Fee" defined by Alamo as follows:


"Concession Recoupment Fee:

At some locations, Alamo has elected to impose "recovery fees" to recover or recoup all or a portion of its expenses related to a type of overhead. At certain airport locations where Alamo is an on-airport concessionaire, Alamo has elected to impose a charge, often referred to as a Concession Recoupment Fee or Concession Recovery Fee, to recover all or a portion of the concession fees which it is obligated to pay to the airport.

Further, many airports impose a fee on revenue from off-airport rental car transactions (typically when the customer exits the airport using the off-airport company's shuttle bus) at locations where Alamo is an off-airport concessionaire; Alamo elects to impose a charge to recover all or a portion of this fee from customers.

This fee, which varies by airport, will appear separately in the charges section of the rental agreement as Airport Fee, or the like."

It bothers me that this fee pops up 'outside' the quote on the airline website. The airline was unaware of it and Alamo makes no apology.

I can understand your annoyance.

The airline should have been aware of it - all rental car companies charge an additional airport fee all over the world and have been doing so for a long time - at least 10 years or more.

In many countries, including Australia, this would be a breach of fair trading laws and leave both the airline and the car rental company open to fines and/or prosecution. This happened to Avis in Australia a few years ago.

I hate the recovery fees. Let's say they even pay off their facility, will they stop collecting? The "Convention Center" fees and "Arena/Stadium" fees are also annoying. They can't collect the money from the locals who use the stadium so they pass it along to visitors, grrr.