Your Travel Rights: The ABCs of Car Rental Fees
by John Hawks

Many travelers experience “car rental shock” when they book vehicles for a trip. They’ve left the rental counter thinking they’ll be charged $200 for the week, for example -- but they’re hit with a $450 bill when they turn in the car!

The culprit? Hidden car rental fees and taxes. The third annual Travelocity study of car rental bills found that these charges added more than 28 percent to the typical car rental total. (In Kansas City, the difference between the base rate and the final bill was a whopping 63 percent!)

Here’s the first rule of car rental billing: Your clients have the right to ask upfront -- before the rental begins -- about any and all extra fees that will be assessed on the rental beyond the base daily or weekly rate. When your clients approach you with ads from newspapers or travel magazines promising super-low car rental rates, remind them that these promotional rates do not usually include the extra taxes and fees that can add up fast. Also, these fees and taxes vary considerably between destinations (or even between an airport location and a neighborhood car rental location within the same city).

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