Car rental fees can indeed be confusing for most people, especially for those of you who are not experienced car rental. Don’t be afraid anymore, and don’t feel cheated, this review will explain clearly. Car rental fees explained will explain what you see and what you will face. Like what? Let’s see
Most of the prices you see in advertisements are the base unit rental rates. No matter how cheap the price you see, what you will pay will most likely be more than the price you see first. There’s nothing to worry about about that. It’s all a marketing strategy.
Car Rental Fee Components
Different companies, different fee components
For example, the Alamo car rental review has fee components:
- Rent a car unit (the price you see in the ad. Usually shown as time and distance / day)
- Toll pass service (optional)
- Refueling service charge
- Young renter fee (if one of the drivers is under 25 years old)
- Additional driver (if there is more than one driver)
- Customer facility charge (calculated daily, mandatory)
- Concession fee (mandatory)
- Vehicle rental tax (mandatory)
- Sales tax (mandatory)
Vehicle insurance consists of Collision damage waiver, Personal Accident Insurance with Personal Effects Coverage, Roadside Service Plus, Third Party Bodily Injury and Property Damage Insurance. Insurance fee is optional.
The next example is a budget rental car review that has fee components:
- Time and mileage (the price you see in the ad. Usually shown as time and distance/day into account)
- Tire battery fee (mandatory)
- Vehicle license recovery (mandatory)
- Customer facility charge (mandatory)
- Energy recovery fee (mandatory)
- State surcharge (mandatory) *experience in renting car in the United States of America
- Concession recovery fee (mandatory)
- Toll (optional)
- Refueling Service Charge / RSC (optional)
- Insurance (optional)
Rental Car Fees Explained: Things to Watch
All car rental employee will offer you insurance. It’s not a bad deal yet if you confident with your existing car insurance you can skip it.
If you already purchase insurance from third party website (for example hotwire) you don’t need to purchase extra insurance at the time you check in. My experience told me that rental car employee will keep offering you this although you already purchase it from third party website. If you agree to purchase insurance at the time of checking in, you have to pay again.
Refueling Service Charge (RSC) is a bit tricky. It is always cheaper to refueling on your own. Yet you must keep record on fuel indicator before and after you return the car.
Now you have it, car rental fees explained.
