There’s a debate raging on rec.travel.usa-canada about confiscatory car rental fees. The whole thing was sparked by a user who posted his Hertz bill at San Francisco International Airport, which included an 8.60 percent airport concession recovery on flight arrivals within 12 hours, an 11 percent “customer facility charge” and a 0.65 percent vehicle licensing cost recovery fee. Ouch!
The discussions have hit on a number of familiar themes, including taxation without representation, car rental company avarice, and the travel industry’s penchant for surcharges.
Valid points, all. But the point that matters most to car rental customers is: How do you avoid these crazy fees? Here’s how …
1. Don’t rent at the airport. You’ll pay extra for transportation to a consolidated car rental facility (whether you use the van or not) plus you’ll shell out extra for using that consolidated terminal. Yes, that’s right, the car rental company passes its rent bill along to you. Go off-site if you want to avoid these fees.
2. Go opaque. Hotwire and Priceline make you prepay for your car, but the good news is, there’s nothing extra — no additional airport-related fees or taxes. Even the major online travel agencies will quote rates that are inclusive, but if you want to be absolutely sure you won’t be overbilled, stick with the so-called opaque sites.
3. Negotiate where possible. Car rental companies can’t control the taxes they have to charge. But extras such as “license recovery fees” are well within their control, and I’ve heard of customers negotiating them off their bill, particularly when they can show they weren’t adequately notified of the fees.
A long-term solution to this problem will have to involve more than the car rental companies. It’s the airports and municipalities that impose these fees that need to come to their senses, too. The tax burden on travelers is simply becoming too heavy.
Put differently, we don’t want to pay for your next football stadium or runway. We just want a set of wheels, and we’ll be on our way.
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{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
Well, if you want my opinion, the San Francisco airport car rental facility *is* off-airport anyway. It seems like an easier walk to downtown San Bruno than back to an acutal terminal. Sheess! Once you have to get on a train anyway, you might as well take it to a BART station near a car rental place.
There’s a tradeoff to not renting at the airport: most rental companies increase their rates at non-airport locations. Lower volume, greate transportation costs for maintenance of vehicles, irreducible staff overhead, all give them valid reasons for doing so. The fact that they don’t have to pay all those airport-related fees to local governments means they can keep more of the money.
My solution: when I rent locally, I rent from the airport location, using a company whose facility is actually off-airport. I arrive some way other than the airport shuttle; usually I have my wife or a friend drop me off. I inform the desk agent that I did not come through the airport. When I did this with Enterprise, the desk agents happily removed the airport fees and taxes, making my rental costs extremely reasonable.
I don’t advocate lying to the desk agents about how you got there; whether you like the airport taxes or not, the local governments have the legal right to impose them and the rental company has the legal obligation to collect them *when you come through the airport*.
I don’t have a solution yet, other than consumer voice, but let’s not call for a government solution. In view of the “government” intervention in travel (TSA being only one example) and the onslaught of red tape and the avalanche of additional rules and regulations, I strongly disagree with any call for “government” intervention.
Let’s begin where you have begun, with dialog and brainstormiing solutions, and a consumer voice of refusal. Our age of communication should be our strongest defense. No one need work a lone.
For the first time In over 20 years I rented a car for airport pick-up in Florida. Fortunately, I cancelled and arranged for a city pick-up at the same price. I arranged for the smallest/cheapest economy car, so when I arrived there greated me a MEGA sized fuel guzzling monster! Hertz insisted that they was “all they had”..so no extra charge. Two days later and over $100 in gas, rather than take it for the agreed one-week, I returned the car early…and that is when the FIGHT began. They wanted to bill me an “early return fee”…then the full-cost of the large car etc. Anyways, the list went on and on. I walked away to think about this.
I immediately rang my credit card company and told them the card was stolen and to reject ALL charges from that day…then I cut up the card.
I then paid them only what I felt I owed 3days rental only…no insurance etc..just a state tax… in CASH…I even filled up the tank and they said there was still room to “top it off”…nerve…Basically they wanted to charge me over $250 for a 3 day rental and I paid them $95.00….
To make a long story short, I raised enough HELL at the counter..of course with other customers waiting for service…and the woman quietly backed off.
Never again. Thanks for the tip on Priceline and Hotwire…I just got lucky and dug my heels in.