Hertz - $150 surprise drop charge

I use Hertz a lot. I rent from an HLE to whatever so cal airport I need to fly out of. And then back again. The cost is usually 10-20 bucks more than a daily rental if you pick up and return to the same spot. So I am used to spending a bit more. As I left the HLE the total cost to LAX was about $60 printed on the rental agreement. When I did the return at LAX this morning an extra $150 fee showed up as an inter city fee. I have never seen this before. The checkin guy told me I needed to go inside if I had any questions on the bill. Inside the agent acted as if I should now about this fee. Having done this one way rental into LAX 10 times this year, I expressed my surprise. She said she would try to get a manager to approve if removing the fee. After about 10 minutes I started to worry about getting to my flight. In the end the agent, helped fix my problem. ANd I probably said a few things I shouldn't have. UGH!

Is anyone else seeing this $150 fee?

The agent told me it is new, and will be charged from now on.

Thanks!:confused:

You shouldn't see an inter-city fee. One-ways are always subject to much higher rates (An extra $10-$20 is pretty low) but there shouldn't be a drop fee. My guess is that the location you rented from may have viewed your information after you left and inadvertently changed the rate plan as this sometimes happens. Just be sure to check your agreement before you leave next time you rent. If the charge is not on there when you leave then they have absolutely no right to keep that charge upon return. If they argue, just put it into dispute and that should be a very easy win.

Have you tried pricing the rental from the pickup point to the local airport you are flying out of BEFORE picking up the rental so Hertz knows in advance that the car is not going back to the original location? I, too, do this in SoCal and am never charged anything.

I just picked up a car from an HLE to take to SFO the next day. I had my email conf. that had a rate of $50. The reservation was for a one-way from the HLE to SFO. Remembering this thread, I asked the HLE agent to confirm and sure enough Hertz had added a $75 intercity fee! Luckily the HLE agent was awesome and made an adjustment such that I wouldn't have to pay the fee. ^ (at least I hope so - I haven't returned the car yet).

Quote from my conf. email: "Rate is guaranteed. Taxes, fees and extras, if not included in the Rate, are subject to change."

This implies they can add any "fee" they like, which they apparently are trying to do. Adding a $75 fee and not disclosing it up-front borders on fraud in my book, especially since Hertz claims no drop fees on their website. Does changing the name to "inter city" really not make it a drop fee? :td::td:

I have not had any issues with this type of one-way rental in the past.

Hmm...very odd. The drop fee, while usually never applied, has always been referred to as an inter-city fee so they haven't changed the name or anything like that. I wonder if that is just happening in California.

I noticed if you were to book a CA one-way now, a bold black line says, "one-way fee can not be calculated." My reservation, CA HLE to NY HLE, didn't say that when I booked a while ago.

I called the location as well as asked the online chat if I should expect any surprise additional charges. They both promised the rate I was guaranteed will be the rate I will get. According to the online agent, the lead agent said there's a computer glitch. Apparently the Hertz Internet system has a lot of those lately.