Some friends of mine came into town last week to visit and do some skiing. I figured it was finally time to give it a try - I've grown tired of people looking at me like I'm an idiot when they find out I've lived in Boulder for almost five years without skiing. Of course, I learned a lot about skiing over the weekend (Bert at Breckenridge was an excellent instructor), but I also learned a couple of other more or less interesting things.
You see, I don't own a car. I've managed to make do without one for over a year now, and it's done wonders for my financial situation. But once in a while I do have need for a vehicle; in this case, I needed to have a way to get myself and my friends (along with all of our equipment) up and down the mountain for a weekend. So I hatched a clever plan - I would take the bus to the airport, where I could meet my friends and pick up a rental car for the weekend. When I dropped them off, I could also drop off the car and take the bus back from the airport.
I looked online for something that could hold our equipment and get us up the mountain. Normally when I rent a car, I get the tiniest piece of crap they have (something of the Escort persuasion) for about $20 a day. Obviously, something like that wouldn't work here, so I started looking at prices for an SUV. I finally found a deal for $48 a day - $240 total. The rental went more or less according to plan, but when I dropped it off I was in for a bit of a shock - the bill came to $331.
Keep in mind that up to this point, I'd never had to pay my own money for a rental longer than a couple of days. At $20 a day, plus random "taxes and fees", I still hadn't hit anything more than $200 (Since I don't have any car insurance, I usually have to get the ridiculously expensive coverage offered by the rental company). So I had never noticed a very important fact: the prices these crooked fuckers are charging aren't even close to accurate.
The word of the day is recoupment - apparently, the rental companies make back their overhead costs with fees they sort of fail to mention before you rent the car. Like the 11.11% "concession recovery fee" that I paid for renting it at DIA - this fee helps Budget get back the cost of renting space from DIA. And the $1.80 a day "facility use" fee - apparently the cost of keeping the vehicle registered in Colorado. These fees get applied *before* the 13.35% tax. In the end, the "taxes and fees" are costing me about $90.
So I've learned a valuable lesson, and next time I reserve a car I'll make sure I know about all the hidden fees beforehand. I'll definitely be telling anyone flying into Denver to take the bus (for $10) into town and rent their car there. And next time I'm bored, I'll probably try to find out how it could possibly be legal for these bastards to advertise the prices they do. I'm sure the reasons will be depressing.
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