June 29, 2005

Rental Cars and Crazy Fees

There's a reason I only rent from National Car and Alamo (now the same company), and avoid most of the other national rental car chains. National seems to be the only car rental company that doesn't care where you take their cars. You can drive them one way or round-trip and the price does not change. Just about every other company charges you crazy additional fees if you tell them you're leaving the state or need a one-way rental. One company I got a quote from even added fees for just driving from Newark Airport over to Manhattan, and even more if you planned on leaving New Jersey.

I once got stuck in Austin, TX during the SXSW Festival and could not get a flight back to NYC for several days as everything was sold out. Realizing this, I walked from the ticket counters at the airport over to National's counter and proceeded to rent a car one-way to NYC. Thirty minutes later I was headed north, back to NYC. It took me almost two days to drive back (crazy hitchhiker stories) but it was better trying to stick around Austin until the next flight several days later. I considrered flying stand-by but the sheer number of people in Austin, TX led me to believe that it would have a long few days at the airport waiting for an open seat.

Anyway, our rental car for getting back to Michigan has been reserved and we're getting excited about attending the casting call on July 14.

Posted by Cameron at June 29, 2005 12:33 PM

Comments

Posted by: Anonymous at August 4, 2005 09:57 AM

Posted by: Jim at August 9, 2005 09:41 PM