In a recent trip down to Los Angeles to see my family, the Avis car rental facility at the Burbank Airport tacked an "11.11% Concession Recovery Fee" onto my bill. My first thought was "what the heck is this 'Concession Recovery Fee'?"
The thing to realize is that the daily rate you see can be extremely different than what you'd expect to see on your final bill.
For example, if you go to Travelocity.com and look up a rental from April 25-29 at Burbank Airport, you'll find that Advantage is shown with a $22 daily rate, but if you look at the "Total Price" below that (in much smaller numbers and a color that's harder to read), it's actually more than $40 more than the "Total Price" for Enterprise's $23 daily rate. Why? Because Advantage considers 3 days of the rental to be a weekend rate, for which they charge $21.89. The fourth day is $59.98.
That's not nearly as bad as National's displayed daily rate of $26. Like Advantage, it's only good for the first three days. But unlike Advantage, which knocks the rate up by $38 dollars on the fourth day, National knocks up the rate by $102 on the fourth day. That's 3 days at $25.95 a day, and one day at $127.95 a day. This is compared to Enterprise charging you $23 a day for all 4 days. Enterprise's $23 a day plus taxes and fees ends up being 111.73, while National's "$26" a day plus taxes and fees is $252.66.
Now, originally, I thought Avis' 11.11% "Concession Recovery Fee" was because they were actually at the airport and had to pay an arm and a leg extra, so tacking this on at the back end was really a convenience fee for renting a car at the airport instead of an off-airport lot. Not really. For that April 25-29th rental, Avis tacks on 22.78% in taxes and fees. Enterprise and Budget, which are both off-airport and require taking a shuttle, tack on around 21.45% in taxes and fees. Despite paying the airport's extra fees for being on the grounds, maybe a 200 foot walk from the baggage claim exit, Avis' only tacks on 1.33% more taxes and fees than the off-airport rental agencies do.
Now, while Travelocity doesn't break down the fees, the individual agencies do. So I went over to Budget and Enterprise for quotes, and found that they both charged Concession Recovery Fees too. Budget charges 10.23% and Enterprise charges 9.88%. So Budget and Enterprise get a desk and a shuttle stop while Avis gets a small building and thousands of square feet of parking lot space, yet Avis only feels the need to charge 11.11% to Budget's 10.23%?
In the end, it's all bogus accounting and playing with numbers: the daily rate the travel sites show you, the different "Concession Recovery Fee" rates, etc. Expedia actually shows you the total price in the same size print as the daily rate, and in bold print of the same color, as opposed to Travelocity's more deceptive display. But wherever you go to look up car rental prices, look for the total price with taxes and fees to get an honest apples-to-apples comparison on what the car rental will cost.
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