ptownca

Seattle now has 3 2016 Corvette Stingrays, a 740il and Porsche Macan. The white one I had a month ago was a treat. Well equipped with upgraded sound system, clear removable targa and some other goodies.

The new Stingray is a world class sports car in every sense. Fit and finish were excellent. Finally, great seats and interior. Suspension is dialed in, not harsh but very forgiving.

The minor nit is the rear of the car could use better sound insulation, but you never feel beat up by the driving characteristics.

clbasham

Thanks to flight delays (thanks AA) I arrived at the rental terminal close to 2:00 a.m. Friday night/Saturday morning. The ES aisle had plenty of SUVs, which are not my thing. A few Chevy Malibus, even more Nissan Altimas - including one with 4 miles - but nothing exciting. I saw a Camaro I thought was in ES but it was locked - turned out to be VIP section.

Only one person working the booth, no greeters. Booth agent said the Camaro was a $50 upsell, but I could have it for $40. :| Only one Preferred car, an Infinity Q70 for $50 per day. I asked if I could have the Infinity for $25, and she said I could, but she didn't have a manager to approve it, so no. Then she said I could have the Camaro for $25. (She could negotiate the VIP, but not the Preferred.) Disappointing, because on my last trip I was given a Charger out of the VIP section with no upcharge because the ES selection was crap.

Tired after wandering the ES and EA (and Microsoft, full, midsize and compact sections) I decided to get the Camaro and she processed the paperwork - but I hadn't even opened the car door yet. When I finally sat in it - disappointment set in. Basic interior, no navigation, and uncomfortable seats - hardly seemed worth the upcharge. I went back and cancelled it and ended up taking a dirty Impala with 18,000 miles. It's actually not bad (the interior was clean, but still no navigation - but I really don't "need" it) and I'm much happier than I would have been with the Camaro. But the Q70 would have been quite lovely.

In the future I'll try to avoid late night arrivals, particularly those too late for a manager to approve any deals.

nikehair

Has anyone had luck finding vans in the aisle? I'll be arriving late Friday afternoon, and will need a vehicle that fits at least 6-8 peeps.

Will probably end up grabbing a van ahead of time though.

flyerbjorn

Minivans, yes. All the time, and a number of them.

I've never seen bigger vans.

Antonio8069

I have an upcoming rental in SEA, and have a heads up for anyone else in the same situation. If you reserve at the airport, you pay # surcharges:
- customer facility charge;
- concession recovery charge.
These "charges" are imposed by the airport to pay for its fancy satellite car rental building. Nice building, but why are travelers paying for it? i.e. what about the car rental companies??
Instead, I am going to taking the light rail downtown, and rent there. My destination (Anacortes Peninsula) is north of Seattle, so I would have to drive it anyway (c/w congestion). Taxes and surcharges are one-half and savings more than pay for transit fare!

AutoSlash

Because they can get away with charging it.

Note that in some jurisdictions (I'm not sure about Seattle specifically), the customer facility charge is levied by and passed through to the airport authority or local government and is mandated to be charged by them. It doesn't really matter, though: all that matters is the total cost of the rental, and if the fee were not broken out and charged separately, the rental companies would raise their rates to cover the costs of paying for the facility.

In any case, it's the same with other rental car taxes. Local jurisdictions know they can get away with charging visitors these taxes because visitors can't vote them out of office (and local residents don't normally rent enough cars to know or care about high rental car taxes).

The concession recovery fee ostensibly goes to cover the 10% concession fee the rental companies pay the airports for doing business on-airport (it's usually part of the lease agreement). The fee is technically imposed by the rental companies and isn't a straight pass-through fee. That's why it's usually 11.11%--they actually have to pay their 10% concession fee on the concession recovery fee they charge, so they have to bump up the concession recovery fee another 10% to compensate, and so on. Silly, but it's universal practice in the industry, and again, rates would just go up a bit if it weren't broken out, so it's all the same.

In your case, between heading north and the time on the light rail vs. the time spent waiting for and on the bus and getting out of that horribly designed monstrosity of a rental car facility, it's probably at least a break-even if not a win time-wise. The one thing to mention is that you should always compare the total price including all taxes of both. Yes, airport taxes are higher, but the fiercer competition (especially when all the agencies are in the same building and next to each other, which lessens the location advantage some companies used to have when some were on-airport and others were off-airport and makes it easier for people to comparison shop, so the agencies know they have to remain competitive with each other to get business) often makes the base rate at airport locations drop low enough to more than offset the extra taxes charged. It depends on the day, but sometimes airport rentals are cheaper and sometimes downtown rentals are cheaper. You just have to check both every time to see.

Quattro

not sure if SEA is just crazy busy this week or if something else is going on. Both Tuesday and Wed this week the wait was 30min plus at both the N and S shuttle pick ups leaving the airport. National had a BMW 3series and a 2017 MKZ in the upgrade area. No idea where the Maserati, Porsche or Stingrays were.

jackal

Wait, the wait was 30 minutes just to get on the bus??

Let these guys know:

http://pfefferdevelopment.com/?r=contact
http://www.conracsolutions.com/email

They (well, their newer spin-off, CONRAC Solutions, linked above) are the contractors that run the Seattle CONRAC. I've mentioned my impressions of and poor experience with the bus to Matt Fairbanks, the president of the spin-off, whom I know from when he worked at the ANC CONRAC, and he's assured me that they've set a high bar of service to keep things running smoothly, but it seems like they aren't meeting it. I'm sure they'd like to know that they aren't.

Some info on the company:
http://www.conracsolutions.com/home/...owall=&start=2
http://pfefferdevelopment.com/index....ews/view&id=47

FlyAsia1

Dropped by last Sunday of August. Wide variety of cars were available, guessing the calm before the business people arrivals on Monday. Picked up a Hyndai Santa Fe from Emerald Exec aisle. There were some regular Jeeps, some pickup trucks (F150), a Durango, etc. Was hoping for a Grand Cherokee Limited, so dice. Check out attendant was very nice while professional (not chatty catty) and wished us well on our way.

FYI, I-5 South has a ton of construction going on, and the pavement is not smooth, so it resonates the road noise to ear splitting levels. I measured 86 decibels using iPhone in the car. Might want a bigger and quieter car (Camry/Buick/etc.) if going south.

bocastephen

Almost all WA state freeway pavement is problematic and has been for years - even a Rolls would give off an unacceptable amount of road noise, and we've tried different tires to no avail. For some reason they did not pave any of their roads properly, don't seem to care, and it could be years before any of the freeways are repaved sufficiently to fix the problem.

Never, ever drive south on I5 on a weekday from 330P to 700P, anywhere from north of Seattle to south of Tacoma, and the reverse in the morning - construction isn't the problem, it's the almost unbelievable level of stupidity among WA state drivers....some of the worst, slowest, dimwitted drivers in the world live here.

jackal

Indeed--people in the Pacific Northwest seem to have two thoughts when driving on freeways:

1) "OMG WHAT IS THIS THING?? A CURVE?? WHAT IS IT?? HIT THE BRAKE!!"
2) "The left lane is the normal lane for driving the normal 10mph under the speed limit, right?"

Love Seattle; couldn't live there SOLELY because of the bad drivers.

bocastephen

3) "Let me keep a 15 car length following distance in the left passing lane so I have enough time to notice the car stopped in front of me while

a) I finishing sending this important text message
b) I take another bite of my triple whopper with extra mayo
c) I let 15 cars driven by people from other states cut in front of me while Bocastephen screams, honks his horn and eventually whips around to cut me off

On the plus side, at least the loud road noise makes it harder to fall asleep at the wheel.

jackal

Oh, and don't forget that people forget what a gas pedal is as soon as one drop of rain from the sky gets within 1 mile of the pavement.

I mean, it's not like rain is a usual occurrence in Seattle or anything, so it's completely understandable.

DonCarpenter

Any idea what I would be looking at here with a luxury reservation? Gonna be there in a week or so and am hoping for something nice.

bocastephen

95% chance of a Cadillac or 300C, and 5% chance you can get an Audi or BMW if that's all they have left. 0% chance of getting a Maserati, Tesla or other upsell specialty car.

It all depends on when you arrive - daytime arrivals when the best greeters (older lady) are there along with management is ideal, but a late night arrival could result in no managers on site, a closed Emerald booth and disinterested staff shrugging their shoulders and walking away after handing you the keys to a dirty, beat up Sonata with 30K+ miles on it for your 'luxury reservation'.