You want to talk about a rip-off? How about renting a vehicle, and then on top of that, renting a vehicle at an airport? I understand that the airport authorities are notoriously bloodthirsty when it comes to grabbing income from whatever fees they can charge flyers, car rentals, taxi companies, whatever, but look at this flagrant highway robbery!
On our trip to the East Coast, Joe and I rented a minivan in Moncton that we were going to drive to PEI and Halifax. This was a SIX day rental from Sept. 11 - 17.
Our total bill: $732.84! That's a worse mark-up than the soulless airlines themselves!
Week rental - $357.00 (Okay, on the original quote this looked okay.)
Service charge - $120.00 (this is for the 'hassle' (big hassle, apparently) of dropping a rental vehicle off at a different location. Our rental vehicle had Nova Scotia plates to begin with, but I won't go into the implications of that here...)
Fuel & Service - $86.65 (I made the mistake of buying the pre-bought tank of gas here (something I normally don't do), at the big deal of 87 cents a liter. At the time, gas was $1.11 in Moncton so I was thinking this was a good deal. Having forgotten the deal with this, they charge you for the entire capacity of the fuel tank no matter how much is left in it. I have a hard time believing that this minivan has a 100L fuel tank, but at this point anything's possible. Lesson learned: always fill your rental gas tank yourself, always. And never rent a vehicle when you're hungover and don't want to bother reading the fine print.)
GST/PST (in good ol' New Brunswick = 14%) - $90.00 (Apparently charging tax on the fuel at this point is okay. Nothing like double-taxation - the govs do it all the time. Ninety fucking dollars.)
Other Addl Charges - $3.84 (whatever.)
Rate Adjustments - $70.61 (Apparently this is the Airport concession fee. Fucking ~10%? You've got to be kidding me. A complete sham.)
Other Addl Charges - $4.74 (just get me over the barrel and get it over with already.)
So there you go. If we had picked up the minivan at any other location in Moncton, I would have avoided $70+ in charges, and if I had filled the minivan proper in Halifax before hitting the airport (it was well under $1.00 per liter by that time), probably another $30 there.
I ended up paying $122.14 per day on this vehicle, plus approximately an additional $10 a day in additional gas during the trip.
Jeff, you say I don't pay my fair share for the privilege of driving a car? Well, here's evidence that I am capable of paying two month's worth of lease payments on a new vehicle for the privilege of driving one for just over six days. Good for me!
4 comments:
Those gouging bastards. I can't belive how expensive it is to rent a car down east. I found the same charges when i rented in Montreal. Don't forget how much the ding you for insurance.
FK
utterly disgusting.
those fuckers!
making money hand over fist, and on shitty-ass domestic vehicles at that!
if you're gonna rape and pillage us so, at least give us some nice lookin' vehicles to cruise around in! :-p
Maybe next time you should rent a compact car (vs. a minivan) for both rental costs and fuel efficiency! A minivan isn't much better than a SUV, really - is it?
I always rent the cheapest vehicle, but this time we needed to haul my bike box all around the East Coast. Just made the whole ordeal that much more expensive.
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