Non-NonRev

The "beauty" of the Palmetto option is that it is all essntially straight lines (plus the big curve). The Palmetto is also the toll free way to get to Central Broward - Palmetto North to I75 North to I595 East.

Also, I went back to read post # 82, and although it was well-intentioned, it was a routing prone to potential problems and confusion.

Happy

Agree. Palmetto is much easier to follow. I-595 might have toll though. I think it is part of the Sawgrass AFAIK it is a toll road.

Very much so. We did a test run on that a week before our trip and decided that would not work because it not only added almost 30 min but very confusing and got us lost more than a couple times due to the twists and turns involved. We figured that if the mini did not work we would just pay the scammer because our rental was only 1 day - from MIA to get home in Broward County.

Happy

Our mini was on the left side of the rear mirror while Avis on the right side. I think ours is slightly closer to the center. Since it has already charged our mini, I am under the assumption that it would not charge another transponder again. Next time I would try to remember to ask Avis where is the on/off switch is on that thing they attached to the windshield. Though given the look of the set up that I recall, I doubt there is any way to turn off that card inside the hard plastic holder. The Avis' is just a plain white card with 2 bar codes on the lower bottom. Does not look at all similar to the mini we bought from Publix.

I came across some posts on FatWallet although they were in 2013 - a guy said he had used his own mini for almost hundred times - sometimes he even forgot to bring the mini with him - but he always made sure to register the plate as soon as possible after he had passed toll roads - with the starting time back to BEFORE the actual time he drove thru. He said the toll always hit his card instead of rental car's. The key is to register the plate with starting time BEFORE the actual usage, and do so no later than a couple hours after using the toll road. Of course the better approach is to register the plate BEFORE you start driving the rental car.

What is very intrigue is, even without the presence of the Mini, but as long as the plate was correctly registered, the toll still was billed to his mini even though the mini was not in the car! I am not sure anyone here has heard / read about this.

Non-NonRev

I595 has toll express lanes but they are wholly optional - when turning east off of I75 onto I595, you must be in leftmost lane and must take a well-marked dedicated ramp - it is extremely easy to avoid.

The toll portion of the Sawgrass starts just north of Sunrise Blvd. (the electronic gate is essentially in front of the BBC Arena where the Panthers NHL team plays).

So it is possible and easy to drive from MIA to the Sawgrass Mills megamall area without a toll.

Non-NonRev

It is all one account. So he supplemented his master account by identifying a second license plate.

Some residents will share one permanent transponder between two cars. If they forget to move the transponder, the plate will be read, and if it is registered, the account will be billed. If they did not register the second plate, they will be billed by mail at a higher rate.

Non-NonRev

Duplicate

iahphx

Before getting our Mini, we tried this routing around mid-day on a weekday. For some inexplicable reason, the traffic light at Le Jeune and 36th St. was a nightmare. Maybe a 15 minute delay. After that, no problems, but it's obviously out of your way by maybe another 20 minutes if your objective is to get back to I-95 and head north. In other words, it's a doable option, but if you're going to be doing this more than once, you probably want to get a Mini instead.

Non-NonRev

It is a tricky intersection, and it can be very busy because an offramp from the 112 empties into it. But once past that point, it's fairly clear sailing.

teddybear99

I am sorry if you got "lost" using my option of SW 8th street to I-95, the road does separate Eastbound and Westbound traffic at SW 27th Ave with westbound traffic actually using SW 7th street from I-95 to SW 27th Avenue, which is then merged into SW 8th street. The Entrance is clearly marked but no mention of it upcoming until you get to SW 7th Avenue (entrance is at SW 4th Avenue). The road does not twist or turn going eastbound and is the sight of the annual Calle Ocho festival.

The 826 option is another one, but you will add about 20 miles to the commute and it bottle necks around the I-75 entrance/Big Curve due to a reduction of lanes. Also, it may be quicker, depending on the time of day, to actually use US-27 (Okeechobee Road) to get from Lejeune Rd and 36th street to the 826 as the road runs on a NW angle and puts you at approximately 96th street instead of 36th street at the entrance to the 826.

I don't know if many people are aware of this but the 826 will be undergoing construction soon to add the express toll lanes from I-75 to SW 8th street with an exit at the 836, so this will add to the delays on the highway.

If you have multiple Sunpass transponders in the vehicle, all of them will be charged if they are read by the toll gantry. That is why they tell you to place yours in the enclosed metallic bag when not in use to avoid being charged by mistake. (I actually left mine on the windshield while the vehicle was being towed after a breakdown and was charged.) I wouldn't be surprised if you see a bill or a credit card charge from the rental company for the tolls as well. As mentioned above, if you have a Sunpass account, you can enter the plate and description of your rental car with a start date and time as well as an ending date and time. The only problem with this is if the car has the agency's registered transponder in the window, it would still charge the agency and never go through the process of toll by plate which will see if the plate is registered after a transponder is not recorded. This where the rental vehicle's charge will get billed to your account.

I have one transponder which is mounted in my car. I have three vehicles registered on my account as my wife and mom don't use the toll expressways that often, but when they do, it's the lower Sunpass costs.

One last comment: the tolls eastbound from the airport on the 112 (Airport Expressway) currently are $.35 at each toll gantry with a Sunpass transponder for a total of $.70. They are double if you do not have a transponder using toll by plate for a total of $1.40. You will spend a lot more than that in gas using any alternate routes mentioned above. The 836 (Dolphin Expressway) is double that as you will pass two gantries at $1.25 each or $2.50 w/o Sunpass.

Are we being penny wise or pound foolish by avoiding the tolls? You can spend the money on gas or you can pay the toll (which by the way I am against as they were originally put in place to pay for the initial construction of the road and were supposed to be sunset after they were paid off). For people who use them regularly, I can see the fees adding up quickly, but for those who may use it once or twice a year that is a different story. I work for Supershuttle and we have transponders in every vehicle. Since the change in the toll structures on the 112 and 836, charging in both directions even though they were reduced, our toll costs have doubled. It's the cost of doing business and we did not have a fare increase because of it.

Happy

Yes. However the transponder itself was NOT in the rental car he was driving - he forgot to bring the mini with him on a few occasions. However he found out that as long as he registered the license plates BEFORE the bill was generated, the tolls still would go to his account, even though the transponder of that account was NOT in the car when he passed thru the toll arch.

This is the part I try to get some understanding to. We might have a chance to test it out as right now I could not find our mini - I took it out from "storage" to show my husband that the mini had a chip in the middle, and it was the chip, not the bar code, that was being "read" because he kept having doubt why the barcode was facing inside. Sadly after that I did not return the mini to where I originally "store" it. Now it is no where to be found. So on the next trip we would register the plate but without the transponder in the car, and see how the outcome would be!

I am not sure if Sunpass would replace a lost mini. I suspect they would replace the lost transferrable transponder but not the mini - after all, you are not supposedly to move the mini from car to car...
In the above cases, the transponder IS with the car - it just moves from car to car, but the device IS on the windshield when the car passes the toll arch. That is VERY DIFFERENT from what that guy described. His own transponder was NOT with the car driven, but he registered the license plate to his account with the start time prior to incur toll. The toll still went to his account despite the mini was NOT taped to the windshield.

This leads me to believe, IF the billing system has not changed since 2013 - that the priority of billing is to run the license plate to find if it is registered to ANY account, and bill the first account found. If no attached account is found, then the second place is to bill the transponder on the windshield (the rental car's if there is one), if there is no account and no transponder, then bill the plate's owner. Just my guess.

Happy

Forgive me, I am more confused than before after reading the above.

I found the above statement confusing and conflicting to what you said in the same paragraph.

1) You said all transponders in the car would be charged.
2) You said if the rental car's registered transponder is in the window, then the toll charge will go to the rental car's and never to charge my transponder.

My transponder is charged. I will update the thread when and if we see the bill from the rental car on this.

In other words, you are saying that using own transponder would only work in the situation when the rental car does NOT have a transponder already mounted to the windshield?

But do you move the transponder to the other 2 cars when they need to use toll road?

Or you simply have their cars registered in your account, but the transponder does not need to be in their cars, and the toll still goes to your account?

Is your transponder a transferrable one or a mini?

Sunpass online seems to treat the mini the same as the transferrable as you are allowed to add cars even though the mini is not to be moved from car to car.

I am afraid you have missed the point. This thread is for travelers who are being scammed by the rental car companies which charge the convenience fee on a daily basis thru the whole duration of the rental even you only use the toll once. Because MIA has made it so difficult to come and go without using the toll road, essentially anyone renting a vehicle at MIA or returning a vehicle would be scammed by the rental car companies for this expensive convenience fee. Doubling the toll is ridiculous but not as outrageously ridiculous as charging customer EVERYDAY for the convenience fee even the customer only uses the toll once on going out, and another time when returning the vehicle when the rest of 5 days (using a one-week rental as an example), the customer never uses any toll road and he is still being charged for the convenience fee, as long as he has triggered tolls.

That my friend, is the purpose of the OP to start this thread. How to avoid being scammed and the only way is to avoid paying toll thru the rental car companies billing system, by 2 options -
1) Avoid triggering toll altogether. Hence the discussion on possible routes.
2) Use your own transponder. But you are telling us that if the rental car companies have a tkransponder already in the windshield, then having your own transponder is not going to help.

Again, after reading your post, I am more confused than ever. So if you could kindly explain it further, along the line of my questions, that would help us to understand better exactly how things work.

teddybear99

1. Correct. If you fail to remove the rental agency's transponder from the car when you place yours, it will charge both transponders.
2. The way you describe it below is backwards. Sunpass defaults to the transponder first. If a transponder is charged, it will never go to the second step of searching for the license plate tag on an account.

See # 2 above.

No, I don't move my transferrable transponder between the vehicles unless one of the other vehicles is going to park at the airport as the parking can only be used with a transponder. It reads the license plate of the other vehicles, identifies the account they belong to, and then charges that account. If you have the agency's transponder removed from the car and register the rental vehicle to your account, it will charge your account accordingly.

Correct-you can have as many vehicles on the account with just one transponder as that is how the website is set up.

MIA did not make it difficult. It's the Miami-Dade Commissioners that changed the way the tolls are set up knowing it's a money grab. The officials at MIA were against this as they knew what a pain it was on the traveling public traveling to the airport.

Again, any transponder in the windshield, if read, will be charged. The gantry cannot determine it's the same vehicle as it is reading the chip in the transponders as they pass and since vehicles are passing at a high rate of speed, it just sees the transponder as it passes below the gantry.

Simple solution, ask the rental car agency to remove the transponder from the windshield.

I responded to your post about being local, but using a rental car to get to/from the airport.

Make a consumer complaint to Miami-Dade County's Consumer Protection about the outrageous fees charged. If enough people complain, the commission may pass a regulation limiting these fees.

http://www.miamidade.gov/business/co...complaints.asp

Happy

1) It does not look that simple as the Avis transponder seems to be a hard plastic basket that firmly affixed to the windshield - totally not like what is shown on the Sunpass website. I dont know if one could tape a piece of cardboard on the outside of windshield to block it.

2) As a local who travels on trips that are often 25 to 40 days long - rental car is the cheapest way to use MIA. I have explained upthread when you and another poster questioned why I used rental car and asked if anyone has a better solution (other than someone suggested to park at Tri Rail station ). Apparently no one has any better solution.

100% of our trips are international which if going to Europe, MIA is it. If going to Asia, MIA is it because FLL has no nonstop flights to LAX or SFO ever since AA decided to give up on FLL. TriRail works only when our flights are on weekdays and no later than late afternoon due to their very sparse schedule after 6pm. Sometimes we go to FLL and take TriRail to MIA but never are able to do the opposite due to our incoming flights never seem to work with TriRail schedule. Take 3 weeks ago we came in MIA at 7:15pm on Wed. No way we could catch the 7:30pm TriRail. The next, and also the last TriRail was 9:30pm. So Avis was it.

Thanks for the link to voice complaint though given the corrupted Miami-Dade Commision that aint going to help anything even if you have thousands of people voice their complaints. Sad but true for Miami-Dade.

Non-NonRev

Too true - the same commissioners who gave the Marlins ownership hundreds of millions of tax dollars for their stadium without allowing the public to vote on the matter.

BTW, made curious by this dialogue, I called Sunpass support and asked the woman for a definitive answer on what happens if a car has two devices (any combination of mini or transponder). She refused to give a "for sure" answer, sticking to a "it's possible" response. I gave up and thanked her for her time.

LPDAL

Yup. Miami International Airport and MDX/MDC are two totally different, separately run entities.

I drive FLL-MIA-FLL every day for work (~65 miles roundtrip) and I wouldn't recommend driving long distances in this state nor would I reccomend using automotive transportation when any other method is available. That's not me being a cynic, it's how it is in this region. Traffic is awful, I am regularly cut off, people going 40 switch lanes into the left one where people go 90, merging onto the highway is a MAJOR PITA because the people in front of you are going 30 while the people already on the highway are going 70+....NOT a pleasurable experience ...

-LPDAL