Hertz is no longer gouging travelers with refueling fees for those who return their cars on empty. Now before all of you get excited out there, we still think your best deal is to fill up the tank yourself before you return your rental car.
The new plan from Hertz for those who don't have time to refill their cars before returning to the airport is that they will charge you the market price of gasoline in your area of rental, plus a $6.99 refill fee. Now folks, that's not bad. Other car rental companies still charge up to $7.99 a gallon to refill your car. Now that's highway robbery!
For example, if you bring back your rental car on empty and it has a 20-gallon tank, you could be paying as much as $160 to refill. Under the new Hertz plan, if the average price of gas is $4 per gallon, you would pay for the same car $80 to refill plus the $6.99 processing fee. Now that's nice. Let's hope the other car rental companies wake up and smell the coffee.
Remember, the best and cheapest refueling fee is when you stop and refill the car yourself.
We also hate the option to pre-pay for a tank of gas in advance. Let's say you still get that 20-gallon tank and you pre-pay $4 per gallon in advance. Well, that's fine if you bring back the car on empty. But let's say you pre-pay for your gas in full but you return your car with a half tank of gas. You actually now paid $8-a-gallon for gas.
If you are not renting from Hertz, you will want to find out the refueling fee of the company you are renting from. But just remember that the worst sucker bet of all is not filling up your tank and getting charged a whopping $7.99 per gallon for gas.
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