Hertz, Avis and others have opened doors for extra charges that you could easily miss without reading the fine print

Airlines and hotels get the most grief for annoying fees. But car-rental companies have turned squeezing extra money from travelers into something of an art form.

Want to pay tolls electronically? Fork over a daily “convenience” fee on top of the toll. Need to cancel that reservation? With some one-day rentals, canceling could cost as much as the rental would have.

Then there are sneaky fuel fees cropping up on more bills.

Jason Scott found them on two Avis rentals in different cities in September. The 39-year-old mental-health training instructor says he was charged for fuel despite returning the cars with a full tank. One was for $16.99, one for $15.99.

Expensive rental insurance and prepaid fuel are well-known charges. Here are three others that can trip up even experienced travelers.

Fuel service charges
Mr. Scott, who lives in Columbia, S.C., started paying close attention to his rental car receipts after he noticed a $16.99 fuel service fee on a three-day rental in Houston in mid-September.

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He says he hadn’t prepaid for fuel, but filled the tank before returning the car. More confounding: He says his receipt showed that he returned the car empty. But the fuel charge listed on the receipt wouldn’t cover a fraction of Avis’s per-gallon costs for cars returned empty.

He reached out to Avis on Twitter and eventually got a refund.

Mr. Scott also checked the receipt from his early September Avis rental in Boise, Idaho, and found a fuel service charge there, too, for $15.99. The receipt said he returned the car slightly less than full even though he says he filled up the tank. He didn’t fight that charge because he had already expensed the rental.

Mr. Scott is still confused why the charge exists and says he has gotten conflicting information from agents on subsequent rentals.

On his third rental that month, he scrutinized the bill with an agent before turning over the keys and dashing to his flight.

“I’m going to be constantly looking for this now,” Mr. Scott says.

Budget Rent A Car, a sister company to Avis, added a $40.41 fuel service fee before taxes to Jason Rabinowitz’s bill in early September, he says. Mr. Rabinowitz, an airline marketing consultant who lives in New York, didn’t notice it until he filed his expense report for the short trip to Washington, D.C.

The fuel reading at the top of the receipt says the gas gauge was an 8 of 8 when the car was rented at Dulles Airport and 6 of 8 when it was returned, Mr. Rabinowitz says. He filled up the tank near his hotel, which was across the street from rental car return. Budget never asked him for a gas receipt, he says.

The mileage reading was also wrong on the receipt, he says, showing he drove it more than 1,000 miles, about 10 times more than he drove.

Budget quickly refunded the fee when Mr. Rabinowitz called.

Jonathan Weinberg, founder of AutoSlash, a car-rental deals site, says he has seen an uptick in customer complaints about the fee. He says Avis and Budget have generally refunded the fees for AutoSlash customers who call to complain. He recommends saving gas receipts and taking photos of the gas gauge as evidence.

An Avis Budget Group spokeswoman declined to discuss individual incidents. She said the company provides specific fee information to customers during booking and discloses its policies on its website.

The fuel fee issue encountered by Messrs. Scott and Rabinowitz is different from another longtime fuel service charge applied to renters who drive fewer than 75 miles during a rental. The Avis Budget spokeswoman says that fee, which the company calls a “convenience” for travelers, automatically happens unless a customer has prepaid for fuel or shows a fuel receipt to the agent upon return.

Cancellation fees
Car-rental agencies used to let customers reserve a car without entering their credit-card information. That meant no financial hit from canceling or not showing up.

The rules started changing when companies began offering prepaid rentals, which have a lower price in exchange for restrictions.

Hertz charges a $100 cancellation fee for prepaid reservations canceled more than 24 hours before pickup and $200 if the cancellation is within 24 hours. Travelers with prepaid reservations forfeit all their money if they simply don’t show up.


Some fees charged by car-rental companies, including Avis, catch consumers off-guard.
PHOTO: ANDREW KELLY/REUTERS
Avis and Budget charge a $50 processing fee for those who cancel prepaid reservations at least 24 hours before pickup time and $150 if it’s within 24 hours. Forget to cancel and you’re on the hook for the entire bill.

Cancellation penalties have recently expanded to more reservations. Earlier this year, Hertz began requiring a credit card at booking for a standard “pay later” reservation at most U.S. locations. Travelers who don’t cancel the reservation or don’t show up are automatically charged one day’s rental. Renters are given a 24-hour grace period in case of flight delays and other last-minute issues.

“This policy helps ensure we have the right car at the right location at the right time for our customers,” Hertz spokeswoman Lauren Luster says.

Retired information security officer Jose Claudio hastily reserved a rental car in Hawaii online but didn’t notice the total price until it was too late. He called Avis immediately to cancel and the company insisted he pay a $50 cancellation fee—it offers no grace period on prepaid reservations.

“I made a mistake and I admit it,” says Mr. Claudio, who lives in Livermore, Calif. “I just don’t like the fact that they don’t have a grace period. Even airlines give you a grace period.”

Airline passengers can cancel most nonrefundable tickets for a refund up to 24 hours within booking with no penalty, per Transportation Department rules.

Avis agreed to refund the fee after Mr. Claudio complained about it on social media.

Toll charges
Car-rental agencies make it easy for renters to zip through express lanes on toll roads by using automated systems like PlatePass.

You’ll pay more than the tolls for the privilege. Hertz charges a $5.95 “convenience fee” each day drivers incur tolls, in addition to the “highest, undiscounted toll rate.” There is no cap on the convenience fee for longer rentals.

Avis’ E-Toll program charges a similar $5.95 convenience fee, up to a maximum of $29.75 per rental of up to 30 days. It also offers an unlimited-tolls option for a daily fee of $10.99 to $25.99, including tolls.

Agencies say the electronic-toll payment system is optional, but veteran travelers suggest renters decide whether they want to use it before they leave the rental-car lot. That might mean turning the transponder off.

Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League, a consumer advocacy nonprofit in Washington, D.C., says she likes to travel with her own E-ZPass transponder when she rents a car. Most agencies don’t charge for that. But Ms. Greenberg says setup can be tricky, resulting in overbilling.

“I once had my E-ZPass and the rental car company charged me for tolls,” she says.

LINK: https://www.wsj.com/articles/r...55?mod=hp_lead_pos13

I've been a FastBreak member of Budget for a long time and the good news for members is that you don't have to worry about missing something while signing papers when you rent a car.

You fill all that out online before you ever rent a car and it doesn't change unless you change it, so the insurance and gas fees won't happen. As for mileage fees, I get unlimited mileage, so that's not a problem either.

Very few things piss me off more than being charged for the privilege of saving them money via so called “convenience fees”