Transatlantic flights and car hire
Why do I get caught out, every sodding time.

After hours and hours in a plane, crossing the Atlantic, followed by the interminable wait at immigration, the last thing the intrepid traveller is equipped to deal with is the wily staff at a car rental desk. Everybody knows, nowadays, that they should get their insurance upgraded before they fly, so as to avoid the ridiculously expensive insurance that's available on arrival, or to avoid paying for the full tank of petrol that's charged at twice the price of the petrol station outside the airport. Knowing this, the rental companies now try other ways to extract extra cash, all of which are for things that are usually an utter waste of money.

A few of my favourites are as follows;
- Upgrade to a better car - We've not got the class of car you reserved, so we'll have to give you a better car for free, unless we give you a great deal on an upgrade and get some extra cash for nothing.
- Peace of mind with a sat-nav, only a few dollars a day - when added up, for a two week holiday, you could buy two sat-navs at Wal Mart and still have money left over for a trip to Wendy's
- Half-price rental on a convertible - in January
And, my all time favourite,
- Prepay all your tolls, save time and money, only $20 - In two weeks, we drove through four toll gates, two coming from the airport, two going to the airport, only one each way accepted the pre-paid tolls. Grand saving of -$22
(lardyboy Next stop, Fissplap Central, Fri 1 Oct 2010, 10:59, Reply)