I just booked some car rentals for PDX and SEA for early Feb. The Avis rental in SEA was quoted as $101.97. When you add to this the tax, fees, airport access fees etc, the final cost was $147.97. I had to ask twice what the final total would cost me, as it was not volunteered.

That is a $46.00 or 45.1% increase. A lot more than the airline $10/$20 surcharge. Talk about rip-offs and robbery......

Oops, I forgot, travelers don't vote at non-local locations. Sock it to them!!!

Wait til you rent a car from Houston...

------------------
Dan
"It is not doing the things we like to do, but liking the things we have to do, that makes life blessed." - Goethe

...or San Antonio!

I was just thinking about this last night, and it prompted me to write a rant on the subject:

-------------------------------------------

Lately I�ve been getting disgruntled about the little ways in which travel increasingly incurs charges that fail to appear until the last minute. After you thought you had already paid everything.

Sure, they may have defensible reasons for tacking on things like fuel surcharges, landing fees, port tax, sales tax, etc. That�s ok, I�ll pay for the visa so that I can visit Australia or Egypt. I have to pay tolls when I drive.

But for some reason, I�m of the mentality that if something is put separately on my bill, I should see the benefit of it. Like the tip that goes to the waiter, or the fees that keep the airport running and safe. So when they start adding things like $1 for an 800 number, or a 20% car rental tax, or a $3 federal line subscriber charge, you can bet my buttons are being pushed in the wrong way. Pushed by municipalities which are sometimes levying fees basically because they can, the benefit of which I cannot see, and get away with it because travelers or people in general don�t fight for that extra dollar charged. What does a dollar matter to us, a fairly well-off bunch? But you know it adds up for the people collecting it.

Of course, in the end *everything* is passed on to the consumer, and maybe if they included these things in the price of the room, plane ticket, or rental rate I might complain less for not knowing about it. But for now, it really displeases me.

Maybe it�s not so bad, though. After doing some research for a recent trip, I find myself glad that at least I don�t live in England, where I discovered that on a $35 flight, you can be charged $100 in airport taxes. Is it any wonder that they�re quietly miserable?

I guess these are the vagaries of life. You have to pay for what you want. I just wish that I didn�t have to keep taking out my wallet for the phrase �Oh wait, there�s one more charge here.�

If you can rent away from the airport, you can often save some substantial surcharges. This is easier than you might think. One way is to take the shuttle to the hotel, then call the car rental and ask them to pick you. Normally, if you are in the same city, you can drop the car at the airport without a drop charge.

And if all else fails, rent the car for 1 day only from the airport. The next day, drive it to a downtown location, and rent from the non-airport location for the rest of your trip.

'Course, if you're only renting for a day or two, it might not make much difference. But if you have a 3 or 4 week rental, as I sometimes do, the difference can be substantial. And often, I can get a better daily/weekly rate off airport.

KenHamer- Thanks for the reminder. I usually pick-up/drop-off my car at the SEA Marriott from Hertz. It was fast, easy and low stress. Guess what, now there is a "Hotel Pickup Fee" on the Hertz web site. Looks like it is equivalent to the airport access fee. There went a good deal.

So that is why I went to Avis. The end of this all resulted in finally going to Alamo, getting a one day rental for Wednesday, returning it, and then an immediate 3 day "weekend" rental from them. Saved about $75 with this minimal hassle, but it still a hassle. I am doing brief consulting job for a small charity, so minimal expenses are a must.

Who knows, maybe I will get double miles for my troubles. I sometimes did in the past.

Arizona is looking to build a new stadium, guess who is going to pay? Lookout!

Boston renters are paying for a convention center.

Recall there was a related discussion/thread regarding this matter earlier:
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum94/HTML/000387.html

I brought this point up before:

All taxes and surcharges should be included in the price, especially the advertised price. If after renting a car, the actual taxes were found to be less than the anticipated rate, the company can then deduct the difference from the final bill. It is our government that allows companies to mislead us with rates that do not include taxes.

I also think that the taxes on auto rentals/hotels/etc are nothing more than taxation without representation since a traveler has no vote in the tax bill that allows the government to collect the tax.

One final thought: Charges for items like ad-volorem recovery fee....I can't believe this is legal to charge.