Originally Posted by
kurjan
Today, when I picked up my rental car at Thrifty Salt Lake City airport, I found a bogus "trip saver" line item for $4.99/day mixed in with taxes and fees on my contract. It turns out that this Thrifty franchisee automatically adds this charge to all rentals, even though it is not listed on the reservation confirmation, and is not disclosed in any way prior to car pickup. It is removed only if the customer notices it and specifically requests that it be deleted.
The charge covers free roadside assistance for the rental car.
This franchisee also engages in at least one other unacceptable practice - they categorize the Hyundai Sonata as a full-sized car, even though it is listed as a mid-sized car on Thrifty's corporate Web site.
Same thing happened to me when I picked up a car from SLC 1/13/11. I specifically asked the girl at the counter what the trip saver charge was and asked if this was a mandatory fee. She told me "yes."
I left and then the next day, called the phone number on the invoice and the moment I said "trip saver" on the phone, they jumped right in, said they would take the charge off, and then got off the phone.
When I returned my car, the price had indeed been taken off... but very shady indeed. How many people pay for this fee I wonder? As the OP stated, they never mentioned it, explained what it was for, etc.