starflyer

Just completed an Avis rental at the Philadelphia Airport. Noticed that my receipt included an $8 per day CFC charge. Anyone have any idea what this charge is for (is it Customer Facility Charge)? What special service am I getting for that $8 a day? Any way to opt out (other than renting from another vendor)?

treston11

I posted a very similar question in the Hertz forum a couple weeks back

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hertz...servation.html

After doing some research, "An $8 per day fee on vehicle rentals at the Philadelphia International Airport will support construction of a facility to be used by customers of rental car companies."

Source: http://www.mwn.com/pubs/xprPubDetail...Detail&pub=382

Trust me in that I have checked EVERY airport rental facility at PHL Airport and all of them have this fee - including Thrifty and Firefly even though they are off-site. Technically the law states that any rental car facility doing business with the airport is affected with this new charge (which means any that have a shuttle, or kiosk at the airport as well).

There is no way to avoid it (at least as far as I know) For a little while priceline and Chase Rewards Mall didn't know about it...so you could have lucked out for a week or two - but that's now been fixed. I also had booked several reservations with Hertz & Thrifty before this fee was even in effect - but they have gone in and updated all of my reservations to reflect this fee now as well.

This fee appears to be permanent. I am now forced to search rental car rates across multiple sites on a daily basis to try and get rates even close to the rates I used to get.

Critic

I don't know if the CFC is permanent, but it's certainly here to stay for a while. PHL is about to embark on a major, long-term expansion project, and I believe those CFCs are going to go into the construction coffers.

sdsearch

Well, except of course by not renting at PHL or by renting at PHL but for a shorter time. For example, if you're coming in late and staying at an airport hotel with a free shuttle, maybe you can lower your count of rental days (and save enough to completely offset the fee) by taking the free shuttle to the hotel, then back to the rental facility in the morning.

Or, as the other thread suggests, check alternate rental locations: Though not always competitive, sometimes they may be less than the airport location anyway.

If PHL is not that close to your final destination, consider flying into someplace else if the flight isn't more expensive and the rental itself isn't more expensive there.


Also, have you tried things like "vacation" packages (of flight + car)? Those are prepaid by the vacation package supplier, and in my experience you don't owe anything when you get to the airport. Maybe they forgot to factor this fee in the package prices?

Then what about using miles for a car rental? Did they remember to increase the miles required because of this fee?

Critic

You might also be able to get around the CFC by taking SEPTA to 30th St Station and renting from AVIS there. But that honestly might be more trouble than it's worth.