This is the story of hidden Orbitz car rental fees I discovered during my recent car hire at Toulouse train station. I’ve booked a weekend trip to France and for two days I needed a car so I picked Orbitz car rental.
Previously I searched on Argus Car Hire, Travelsupermarket.com, Car Hire Market and a plethora of other sites and they all quoted between £120-250 for the two days! I thought sod it and wasn’t going to book anything at all. But then I remembered a trick I learned a few years ago with Orbitz.
Tip: When you book a trip in Europe it is also worth checking US travel booking sites because they often offer far cheaper rates.
Orbitz Car Rental, the Cheapest Deal – But With Surprises!
This is what I did and I found that Orbitz.com was offering the same two days, same location and even the same rental companies at $18/day (excluding fees & charges). That is a total of £75 with fees, almost half the price of what the other firms were offering. So I booked it through Orbitz Car Rental but the price breakdown on the following page totally surprised me.
By the way, I have lots of other car hire reviews on this website, why not check them out?
On the front page results (below) you see $18/day – $96 total. For a layman two days at $18/day would equal $36 plus charges. Now if I deduct $36 from $96 it is obvious that the charges add up to an extortionate $60! And for what?
I tried to find an explanation on the Orbitz website but I failed miserably. So I clicked on “Reserve” hoping there would be an explanation on the next Orbitz.com page.
Hidden Orbitz Car Rental Fees – Or Am I Blind?
That’s where I found the below image. In the breakdown it says “No Surprises” – presumably meaning everything is clear and I will understand it all. But not so! I’ve rented a gazilion cars and have written plenty of car hire reviews, but this one with Orbitz has completely baffled me.
Now, I added everything up again and I just struggled on! I added up another time, three times, four times and a dozen times but I still wouldn’t get $95.85! I multiplied $35.82 by 2, added the taxes and fees and $2.20 was still missing.
Then I added them up separately and got only $57.84. So I added $35.82 again but I was still short of money! I then multiplied the tax by two and then the car rental rate by two but then it was more than $95.85. I thought forget it, I booked it with Orbitz as it was still a lot cheaper than the others but I decided to phone the Orbitz Customer Care Center to check.
I phoned Orbitz and I was super surprised that an agent picked up within four minutes even though it was Memorial Weekend Monday! What a service I thought! I explained to her what I wanted and she couldn’t find the same price! So I walked her through each step and finally after 20 minutes she found the same rate on Orbitz.com.
Orbitz Hangs Up on Me
The problem was, she couldn’t explain the difference either! I could not believe that someone working for Orbitz Car Hire did not understand how the system worked! So she phoned around the entire department, but not a single person in charge knew the answer. By then I’d spent 40 minutes on the phone! This is when I decided to turn on my recorder.
She said she would phone Europcar to check, which she did but she still couldn’t explain. So I tried to drill down a bit more and asked her to get a calculator and add up for me. We started it but then instead of going through she hung up on me!
The Second Orbitz Car Hire Agent
I phoned Orbitz back, furious by then! I already spent almost an hour on the phone with the previous Orbitz Car Hire Agent and got no answer! I explained to the next agent and he couldn’t figure it out either!
So, after 40 minutes on the phone again he transferred me to his line manager. Finally, the line manager explained that although on the front page it says $18/day, I should just ignore it because that’s not really the price!
I was like, “why advertise $18/day if the final price is completely different?” No real answer to be honest – if you want you can listen to the recording below! He says I will only ever find out the clear breakdown when I collect the car.
So not enough there are hidden Orbitz car rental fees, but even the agents cannot explain what those fees are! In total I spent 110 minutes on Skype with them!
What Other Surprises?
So there were still going to be a lot of surprises even though on the site they said “No Surprises!” So basically I had to pay $60 in fees and charges and whatever else, but I was still none the wiser what those fees and charges were.
And I still did not have a clue why from $18/day it turned into $35.82/day? But at least I found out that the $2.20 difference is Orbitz’s booking fee, which wasn’t listed anywhere during the booking process – so that’s one more surprise for sure!
If you want to avoid a paying out a huge amount of money in case of an accident, read my review about car hire excess insurances.
Mystery Solved – Bank Holiday Surcharge
UPDATE: I picked the car up at the tran station in Toulouse and everything was fine during pick up. The Europcar agent was very helpful and explained that because it was a bank holiday in France that weekend they applied an extra surcharge which is why Orbitz could not explain any of it to me! Ie, Orbitz had no idea Europcar charged this bank holiday fee.
So basically the car came in at $18/day, plus the $2.20 Orbitz rental fee, the taxes and then on top of it the Bank Holiday Surcharge. If only it was listed in the picture above it would have been clear! Anyhow, clearly, Orbitz Car Hire has some way to go to make the slogan of “No Surprises” correct!