Ouch! This one “Hertz”

Or the tale of our tiny silver ‘limo’.


The old adage ‘the devil’s in the details’ comes to mind as I tell the  latest segment in the High Plains Drifters travels. Those details are important when it comes to travel. . .and this time we slipped up and missed one tiny detail.   A costly little one, at that.

Rental cars are not cheap commodities these days no matter how good a deal you get. There are the usual add-ons like city, county, state taxes to which are added  “concession recovery  fees, facility fees and vehicle license cost recovery fees'” and, in the case of Hertz, the second driver (me) fee of $12 a day which we passed on. 

. . .ah, yes, then there is that drop off fee if you don’t return the car to the same place you picked it up.

That’s the  one  that nailed us.  We thought we’d confirmed we were picking up in Vegas and dropping off in Phoenix but somehow missed that detail.  A costly error indeed.

The Hertz counter agent quickly recalculated our rental and without blinking an eye our six day Nissan Versa  ‘economy’ car  (meaning ‘tiny’ not ‘cheap’) skyrocketed from the $285 to $604.

So with our accommodations pre-paid in Phoenix and our plane tickets home from there, there weren’t many options before us.  (Yes, we considered turning it in immediately upon arrival in Phoenix and renting a car there but that created a one-day rental fee of $245, pretty much defeating the purpose of salvaging some of the cost).

So we set off in what I am calling our ‘tiny silver limo’’ on a great route to Phoenix. More on that in our next post. For now, if you have a trip planned, go check your documents – one more time.