Others who take the option: travelers from outside the United States who either don t understand the

The clerk at the Alamo Rent-a-Car counter near the Los Angeles airport recently gave me the well, it's your funeral, pal look when I told him I preferred to return the vehicle with a full tank of gas rather than a nearly empty tank.
Are you sure? he said. Then, in an effort to get me to change my mind, he told me a lie: There aren't any gas stations travel channel samantha brown near the airport in Sacramento (where we intended to return the car). It's way out there.
I told him I'd take my chances. I really didn't like the idea of strategizing well in advance to bleed the tank almost dry on the last day of our vacation; sweating out the ride to the airport with the needle perched on E and our flight home waiting for us. I also didn't like the idea of paying for a full tank of gas up front but leaving Alamo with three or four gallons -- you never know how much gas is left even when the needle says no gas at all.
All that free fuel! No wonder Alamo seems to hope its customers choose the empty-tank option ( a further incentive, particularly for business travelers who aren't paying their own way and don't want to bother stopping to fill up, is the eye-popping $6.25/gallon charge they hit you with if you tell them you'll return the tank full but then don't).
As it turned out, there was a gas station just a few hundred yards from the car-rental return area at the Sacramento travel channel samantha brown airport. The price per gallon travel channel samantha brown for low-test was a bit over $3 -- which may explain why the most recent J.D. Power and Associates Rental Car Satisfaction Study showed that almost 80 percent of rental car customers fill the gas tank at the pump prior to returning their vehicle -- an increase of 8 percentage points compared to the 2004 study.
travel channel samantha brown The benefits of these (options), as well as the additional costs, are to be explained thoroughly travel channel samantha brown and in a professional manner. We apologize travel channel samantha brown that the options were not presented to you appropriately and appreciate your bringing travel channel samantha brown this matter to our attention so that corrective measures may be taken to preclude a recurrence in the future.
Yes, but is there an incentive to get the customer to choose one option over the other? A bonus? A brownie point? If so, this would obviously motivate a biased, incomplete presentation of the options.
I ve never really had rental car agents push the gas tank fill-up option travel channel samantha brown on me, but they always seem to push the buy their insurance option travel channel samantha brown repeatedly even when I decline and tell them that my own insurance company will cover things. I figure they must have an incentive to sell the extra insurance.
I can t believe the clerk thought anyone would believe that one of the five major airports in California--or any major U.S. airport--doesn t have at least one gas station nearby, especially when the customer can verify that statement within a couple of days and then complain if he/she was misled. I fly in and out of Sacramento for work regularly and I know the gas station you re talking about; it is adjacent to the airport and unmissable along the only entrance to the airport.
It seems more and more companies would rather nickel and dime their customers, just assuming they are ignorant and/or stupid, than try to act in their best interests which would probably make them repeat customers.
However, I d guess this is not a directive from the top brass of Alamo, but rather some branch manager trying to score points with corporate. The clerk probably couldn travel channel samantha brown t care less and was forced to do it to placate his manager.
This reminds of the warranty sales at Best Buy. BB employees travel channel samantha brown used to push really hard to sell their warranties. (At one point I was called stupid and an idiot because I didn t spend $200 on a warranty for an $800 laptop. The battery would die, the hard drive would crash, blah blah blah. Really inspired confidence in the product.)
ZORN REPLY -- I wish that, from the beginning of my career as a consumer, I d set aside in a separate personal warranty insurance travel channel samantha brown bank account the cost of every service agreement or other form of insurance travel channel samantha brown or protection offered to me (with the exception of major medical, fire, life and auto liability insurance, of course), and then withdrawn from that account for repairs travel channel samantha brown and replacements that would have been covered by such plans had I taken them.
I hate having to defend some huge corporation, but to look only at the price they are charging per gallon to fill up the tank if you choose to bring it back less than full is short-sighted. Unless they have their own tank right there at the airport, they have to pay somebody to drive the car to the nearest gas station, fill up and drive back. Thus there are labor costs to figure (and not just the worker s hourly pay: insurance, taxes, etc). Additionally, if that nearest gas station is unwilling to enter into an account agreement with the rental company, they may have to take the car even further.
I wouldn t be surprised if the company set the price per gallon high specifically to DISCOURAGE travel channel samantha brown people travel channel samantha brown taking that option. The person you dealt with was probably too dim to realize the company doesn t really make that much in profit on the deal to justify the added personnel costs.
ZORN REPLY -- I don t know. If what you say is true then you may be right, as the saying goes. But my guess is that rental car companies have on-site travel channel samantha brown fueling stations and that the cost per gallon reflects what the business-rental market traffic will bear, not the actual cost of refueling.
The people who take the buy the fill-up now and bring back an empty tank option are primarily business travelers on expense accounts who 1) don t want to be bothered filling their tanks on the way to the airport but 2) don t want to risk incurring the bean-counters wrath by having Hertz fill a half-empty tank at $6.25/gallon. (That, like expensing a mini-bar Coke or an in-room movie, is a flag.)
By paying upfront at a rational price, the business traveler is covered for the gas purchase and doesn t have to suffer the indignity and pressure of hunting for a station near the airport and, possibly, soiling his hands. To that traveler, the cost is irrelevant because the beancounters (unless they really scope out the receipts) would have no idea whether the businessperson returned the car with a nearly full tank or on fumes.
Others who take the option: travelers from outside the United States who either don t understand the terms or aren t comfortable with the hassle of having travel channel samantha brown to fill up near the airport; and inexperienced renters travel channel samantha brown who panic at the counter and take everything.
A last point: As a frequent renter with a good set of ears, it s been years since I ve heard a counter-person even softly pressure a renter toward taking the gas option or unnecessary insurance. What they will do is lay out the options, without recommendations, then leave it to the customer. When the customer asks for guidance, the counter-person typically either says, again, It s really your call or, more frequently, explains the options risks as best he can.
There always something going on that the consumer is not aware of but the seller travel channel samantha brown is. Take a deep breath and resist the push at the counter, travel channel samantha brown it will invariably work out in your favor when you resist the urge.
In June, I needed a rental car on short notice to get to an out of state funeral. On the one hand, I need to compliment Hertz for finding a minivan and delivering it to my local branch within hours. On the other hand, I cannot travel channel samantha brown believe the hassle I went through to complete a rental agreement. I got the full, hard sell on insurance, refueling, etc. Each time I declined, I was treated to the same it s your funeral look that Eric describes. When I asked for my AAA discount, the clerk punched keys on the computer for several minutes only to tell me the price keeps coming out higher when I enter the AAA code. Could I save money with a weekly rate instead of paying for the 5 individual days that I needed the car? I really don t think so. answered Ms. Hardsell. I still feel like I was taken advantage of in a time of distress.
As for Joe Blow s comment, I wonder how long ago he was shopping at Best Buy. I worked there for eight months, starting July 05, and never was told of any incentive program to sell service plans. I checked with my brother, who worked there for years, and this was the first time he heard of this.
But that aside, while I will buy products and pass on the service plan, there are some things I will always get the plan on. Laptops, using the example above, travel channel samantha brown are a definate yes . Check the warrenty to see what is and what is not covered. travel channel samantha brown Your batteries (which are a consumable item and need to be replaced eventually) are usually not covered by the manufacturer, or if they are covered it is only for a short period of time. And the price to replace them is not cheap, the batteries in my Dell Inspiron run $125 each, and I use two. The service plan covers travel channel samantha brown the batteries, makes for a nice suppliment.
The guideline I establish for people travel channel samantha brown is to look at the repair situtations. If it s a high repair cost item (laptop computer, digital cameras), I suggest the plan. If it s a hard-to-move item (large appliances, large televisions) I suggest the plan simply for the reason that on-site service is part of the plan. Other situtations, I have the attitude of: It s your money, do you want to spend a little now, or more down the road when you need to replace it.
I used to pride myself on stoutly rejecting the supplementary insurance offered at rental-car travel channel samantha brown counters. I changed my mind after talking to my local insurance travel channel samantha brown agent. He told me that yes, my auto insurance does cover rentals -- but car-rental companies have found a loophole by charging people for loss of use when they damage a rental car. In other words, they ll charge you for what they could have made off the car while it s in the body shop, and ordinary car insurance doesn t cover that.
This is not directly on topic but why will most (all?) car rental companies not guarantee a child safety seat with a rental? What exac