Location Fee - a complete rort

[Happy Dude]

A recent one day hire with Hertz from SYD saw the quoted $20 location fee balloon to $32 because that fee is calculated as a percentage of the total rental cost.

So if you use their tolls, do additional kms, baby seats, gps, extra fuel etc etc - the location fee increases accordingly. I'd never noticed it before - but because I've taken on some of the 'extras' from time to time, I'm sure it's been applied.

How is it even rational? This industry makes the banks seem like rank amateurs when it comes to fees/charges and is in dire need of a class action law suit.

 

[OzEire]

This is 100% right. If the extra cost of offering a service at a premium location is fixed, so should the surcharge be fixed.

Someone is going to pay for those extra costs, one way or another, through a fixed one off charge, a daily surcharge or (as in OPs example) a fixed percentage of total cost.

It's a business decision to charge in this way and if it doesn't work in your favour to hire from this company, try another (so long as there actually is a choice and they don't match each other's fee structure anyway).

 

[Happy Dude]

I get what you're saying and I get that SYD is a premium location and all that but linking the fee to unrelated user costs is not logical and not explained when those costs are offered.

I'm assuming the others have similar methods so in future I'll be avoiding the add-ons. How do you avoid the toll fee though?

 

[UP4014]

Here is another rort - GPS. They have cars that if you went out and bought them in the showroom they would have GPS inbuilt and working. I have a rental the other day in a vehicle I know they come in as standard. But guess what, it was disabled. Of course they want to hire you one at $10 per day. That was Avis.