Originally Posted by
itsme
I donīt have the contract at hand, but I believe there were at least a dozen places to initial there at the counter. It turns out one of those places did show "1 USD = 11.85 pesos," but I donīt know that I looked at it, or if I did that it should have put me on notice I would not be able to pay with my US AmEx card in USD, especially since the total rental was stated there on the contract in USD, nowhere in pesos.
Well, what
did you think the purpose of that clause was, exactly?
Originally Posted by
itsme
Am I alone in seeing this as something of a scam, that is seeing a charge 10%greater than the one I booked at? Others would have no problem with this, or they would have been prepared to pay in cash (USD $) when they turned the car back in?
It's a scheme, also commonly used by hotels. The practice of quoting rates in USD
does serve a legitimate need, when the rental location/property is located in a country with an unstable currency.
Then, local managers start to get a bit "creative" by lowering the quoted rates in USD, and inflating the exchange rate ...
Central reservations should have warned you that you will be paying in local currency, at the arbitrary exchange rate, set by the rental location. If they did not, then I would ask them to reimburse you the difference.