I booked car hire for a day in the US through Rentalcars.com. I was to collect it from Philadelphia and drop it in Cleveland. I paid £35.05 and bought non-refundable tickets to a concert in Cleveland and an overnight return ticket to Philadelphia on a Greyhound bus.
I then received an email from Rentalcars saying there would be a $150 (£113) surcharge for dropping the car at a different depot. This was not mentioned when I booked. My budget is tight (hence the bus) and I cannot afford to pay an extra $150.
Rentalcars said that although the surcharge is included in the quote for other hire companies it isn’t for Alamo bookings. It added that the booking was refundable, but then I’d have wasted $112 on the concert and bus. In its latest email it claims it was “unable to provide any information regarding charges applied locally”, yet the site provides this for Dollar, Hertz and National – indeed, it would appear everyone apart from Alamo, which appears first in its menu.
IJ, Salford
Rentalcars points to a strap at the top of the webpage where quotes are listed. This states: “At pick-up, some car hire companies will charge you a one-way fee for dropping your car off at a different location. If you choose a car from one of these companies, we will tell you.”
It’s easy to miss as the eye is drawn to the prominent quotes for each car, which make no mention of a surcharge. Moreover, the fee is automatically specified in quotes from other firms so one assumes all quotes are comparable.
Rentalcars explains that “several suppliers have a complicated system of calculating fees dependant on locations and distance, requiring us to manually obtain the fees before confirming them with our customers. This is something we are working to have simplified to enable us to display them upfront.”
Happily for you, Rentalcars decides it wants you to get to that concert so has waived the $150 fee.
If you need help email Anna Tims at your.problems@observer.co.uk or write to Your Problems, The Observer, Kings Place, 90 York Way, London N1 9GU. Include an address and phone number.
