In Florida, Dollar and Thrifty charge a $15 administrative fee per toll unless customers opt in to the $8.99 per day "all inclusive" plan (so I can come out ahead if I visit grandma 10 times each day!).Ī lot of tolls are being fully automated, and the option to pay with cash is disappearing. You can rest assured that the $3.95 fee does not go to an army of skilled bureaucrats sifting through a mountain of toll invoices that arrive in the mail - it's all handled electronically, and nearly all of these charges are retained as profit. Furthermore, from the moment I triggered the first toll, I would be charged the $3.95 daily fee per day (or fraction of a day, with a maximum of $19.75) regardless of whether I passed through another toll during my rental. Adding insult to injury, my account was charged for the full toll price rather than the discounted price paid by all other vehicles with transponders. But a couple years ago I was forced to drive my rental car through the automated toll plaza, as the cash toll booth was being demolished before my eyes.Īs a result, I was stuck paying both the toll itself and Alamo's "convenience charge" of $3.95 per day, which is quadruple what my round-trip cost would have been if I had been able to pay cash. To visit my grandmother in Coral Springs, Florida (about a half hour north of Fort Lauderdale), I have always taken the Sawgrass Expressway and forked over two quarters each way for the privilege. In this post, I'll explain how certain rental agencies handle these charges, and what you can do to avoid paying more than your share. When this trend was combined with the move toward cashless tolling systems, rental car companies smelled a new profit stream that reeked of a scam to their customers. Sometimes these tolls are imposed to fund new construction, while other times drivers are offered the choice of using "express" toll lanes that may have less traffic. Toll roads are becoming increasingly common in many major cities.
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