sophiegirl

I thought I had seen it all when it came to rental car add-ons, fees, taxes, charges, etc etc etc.

But at MCO this week I checked my receipt and found the following:
.06c for a tire/battery replacement
$1.35 for license recoupment fees.

When one is renting a car, don't those things kind of come with it? To my knowledge, tires/batteries/and a license plate aren't options...

Too funny.

Ocn Vw 1K

License recoupment fees have been part of the rental car add-ons for some years now in many cities; but I've never seen the battery/tire replacement one before. That's creative!

ralfp

Plenty of companies charge bogus "taxes & fees" that include things like "Regulatory Compliance Fees" (e.g. the opportunity cost associated with not murdering your competitors) and "Fuel Surcharges" (i.e. a cost inherent with the service being provided).

IMO it should be illegal to quote a price that does not include all costs, with the possible exception of government imposed taxes & fees that are directly tied to the individual transaction in question (e.g. security fees, but not per-aircraft landing fees).

UnoriginalGuy

Maybe people should vote with their feet and create a rental company who sell an all inclusive price.

e.g.
Price £60/day
With Est. Tax: £69
Damage Excess: £500

If there is no damage (as you would expect in MOST cases) you actually pay £69/day in cash.

People have done it with airlines. A few years ago airlines started adding hidden fees and people voted with their feet to change to the "all inclusive" price services and now all but the bottom tier have all inclusive prices.

OverThereTooMuch

They could raise the daily rental fee by 6 cents and nobody would notice.

But adding a line item to the bill highlights this completely useless fee. I don't know if such a small fee would prevent me from renting from that company again, but I'd certainly think about it (and like the OP, I'd tell friends).

So I wonder why they would add such a small fee. Maybe the parent company sets the rental rates, and this is something that goes directly to the local office?

UA_Eagle

My guess is since so many customers are overly fixated on the base fare/rental rate, the best way for businesses to draw in customers is to beat its competitors, and then throw in the various fees to bring the rate up to a level they'd have prefer to charge in the first place. Hence all those silly fees (airlines do the same thing with their fuel surcharges, etc).

swag

Which rental company was it?

RustyC

A "vehicle license fee" is another common unbundling thing.

Then there are places that charge both a "concession recoupment fee" and a "facility fee," with the latter often being the worst tax of the bunch in terms of dollar amount. I guess that means you have to pay for the facility AND for the car-rental company's costs to use that facility.

Car-rental companies have no concept of what should be a "cost of doing business." If there's any self-regulation here at all (doubtful), it sure hasn't worked.

OTOH, in the bad-old pre-Internet days the car companies would routinely tell you one thing over the phone and another at the counter. Alamo was terrible about this, and heated arguments there used to be routine. So were the second-tier and no-name companies. At least today it's easier than ever to get an all-in price, something that used to be like pulling teeth. The industry has a long history of questionable practices and complaints, especially outside the very largest operators.

All that said, IMO the very worst extra charges are for things like Kansas City's "downtown arena fee" that have nothing to do with car rents. It's the classic taxation-without-representation, and state and city politicians sometimes will use car-rent taxes to pay for things they want but are too unpopular to ask their own taxpayers to pay for.

jackal

Nail-->head.

There are so many people who will pick the cheapest price even when it's only a matter of cents difference--$19.95 versus $19.99 ("but BUDGET is offering for four cents cheaper!!!"). And on Travelocity's grid, they often click the company with the lowest big number (base rate) and ignore the little numbers (total price) underneath.

I actually know one franchisee who used to have a $2-per-day vehicle licensing fee and voluntarily removed it. He also bought one of the competing franchises (dual-branded company) and subsequently removed their vehicle license fee and their junk "transportation fee". So they're not all evil!

On the whole, though, I agree that it's hard to get car rental companies to see things as the cost of doing business. Perhaps it's the razor-thin (and often negative) profit margins and the high level of risk involved in the operation that drives the need to place as much financial responsibility as possible on customers. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect, though, that if a customer drives over a nail and causes the tire to go flat that the customer should have to pay for the tire. That's no more part of "the cost of doing business" than giving away drinks from the minibar should be part of a hotel's "cost of doing business."

Eastbay1K

Totally different. It is more like getting on the bed in the hotel and it breaks, or turning on the TV and it blows, or eating and drinking all the minibar contents (at a charge, of course) and the toilet clogs.

LibFlyer

Do we know it is really the customers who are fixated on the base rate? Or is it the companies, and their marketing departments, who want to advertise a low (and inaccurate) rate?

sbm12

I am pretty sure that the tire/battery fee is a state-mandated fee in Florida at two cents per day. It is actually there to cover the costs of recycling those components after they are removed from the cars. I have the same fee on my rental from Alamo in JAX this past weekend.

pentop

Don't forget that since most corporate contracts are negotiated off of base rate and fees don't count, adding junk fees makes sure they get the revenue they want.

MisterNice

The license fee has been around for a while but I never heard of a tire/battery, outside mirror, lug nut, gas cap, arm rest or glove compartment fee.

MisterNice

Brendan

Ever since I started going to FL in 1992 every rental co. there has charged me 5c per day state-mandated tire/battery fee. So I guess this 'un is a bona-fide tax.

However, I agree with the OP in objecting to the License Plate fee, which is charged mainly in states that charge personal-property tax when one buys a license plate, such as IN, CA, VA; NC bills it separately. Duh, it's an expense of business! Further, when they give me a car bearing a tag from a state without such a PP tax, they don't remove the fee !

MY biggest objection is to the Airport Concession Fees, which are tantamount to saying, "Let's make the customers pay extra to cover our high rent & pretend it's a tax!"