Modern Vespa

So doing a moderate amount of traveling and being 60 years old I have rented my fair share of cars. I have to admit to not being a fan of rental agencies as they always seem to be just trying to screw you. This weekend I had a couple of rental cars issues. We went to Bethesda to visit my daughter for Thanksgiving, flying into Reagan Airport in DC. We had a reservation for a rental car with Thrifty who is located off site and thus tends to be cheaper as there are not all the airport taxes. When we shuttled over to Thrifty, there was a long line of people, all having had reservations with thrifty, but thrifty had no cars for any of them, including me, again all of these people had documented reservations as I did. Thrifty shares its office with AAdvantage, who had cars but at a much higher price, and all thrifty would say was try them but the price will be higher. Luckily we called my daughter at home who got on line and found us a better deal at Budget back at the airport, so we got a car but it did cost us more than the thrifty price but much cheaper than the AAdvantage price(maybe I am just being paranoid but it seems like a scam to me).

Next, so today we dropped off the car at Budget with a full tank of gas( I always do this as their other options will likely cost you more). They printed out the bill and I saw on their bill was a $14.88 fuel surcharge, which was not mentioned by the person giving me my bill(luckily I looked at the bill and noticed the discrepancy between the quoted price and the bill). They told me that this was because I drove the car less than 75 miles. They did say that if i went to the office they could remove this from my bill, which I did, but to add that to my bill, not say anything to me is also a scam, they likely just hope people dropping of rental cars are in a hurry and will not check their bill. The fact that I did not drive the car that much, yet paid them a full daily charge for the rental, should not penalize me but perhaps give me a rebate.

The bottom line is unfortunately you have to watch everything today, so many times things get added to your bills, etc, it is a sad state of affairs.

Thugs are every where and in corporate uniforms... in my experience. R

Car rental firms have all kinds of nice little "local extras".

About three years ago, we started using this agency to book car rentals. They search out the best deals and contract them for you. Not only did we get the best rates ever, but no surprises, as the prices quoted are all inclusive bottom line price. If your confirmation says "$125.16" that's exactly what you pay at checkout. They charge a small commission, but the total of their commission and the rate they get you with the rental car company is still better than the rates you could get on your own.

When I need a car locally I use Enterprise. If I reserve a car through COSTCO I get an even better deal. The rates are quite low, they will even pick me up at my house, and I have never had them play any games with the price. The quoted price is what I pay every time.

Down side is that they are not open on Saturday or Sunday.

Rental rates at the nearest airport (Burbank) are three times higher than at my local branch office.

BTW, I think Enterprise missed out big time when they let National get Patrick Stewart for their commercial voiceovers.

Since Enterprise owns National, they can choose him for their commercials too

I did not know that.

Makes it even curiouser.

My wife and I travelled to Tucson for a reunion last summer. My wife got two vouchers from Air Miles each good for $50 off. Alamo would not honour them because our reservation did not list them as part of the payment. In order to get them honoured they charged us a $50.00 fee and then took $100.00 off the cost of the rental.

So we saved $50.00 with our $100.00 worth of vouchers. When we returned from our trip, we complained to Air Miles and they refunded all the miles that we had used for one of the vouchers. So, we got scammed by the rental car company, but Air Miles was great to deal with.

Enterprise here in Germany are miles ahead of the other companies.

PS: Maybe because as a college visitor in Florida in the 70's I used to drive National rental cars back and forth all over the state.

The Chevy Impalas were comfortable. They were all light colored, because of the heat. But the Plymouth Dusters were quicker and more fun, also the highest top speed.

I like Mopars.

Priceline comes up with some great rates.