Thrifty Car Rental - Fort Lauderdale Hollywood International Airport - FLL - Florida - USA

We recently rented a car from Thrifty to go from Ft. Myers to Ft. Lauderdale airport and travelled across the state on the well known Alligator Alley route. When we picked the car up it was dirty and we had to empty trash out of the front and back seat. Then the attendant responded to our concern that there was only half a tank of gas by saying, "Well, I could work a deal with you if you were returning the car here, but since you're going to Ft. Lauderdale you have to wait while I get it filled." We waited, delaying the start of our trip for about 40 minutes. Along the route, we encountered at least two sets of toll booths and we paid them with cash, found our lodging for the night, went to dinner and returned the car at the Ft. Lauderdale airport the next morning before our flight back to Buffalo. Done, right? Oh no, far from done. It seems that, in Florida, there are "etolls" which are assessed as cars pass cameras that record the plate numbers of "Sunpass" holders and bill those holders. The average driver, especially one of the millions, perhaps billions, of tourists driving around south Florida, would of course have no way of knowing they're passing a toll site if they aren't required to stop at a booth. Three weeks after our trip, we received a bill from Thrifty, informing us that unless we made other payment arrangements, they were going to bill our credit card for a $1 and a $1.32 toll we had run and they had been required to pay, plus two $15 administrative charges for a total of $32.32. That's an administrative fee that is 30 times greater than the initial cost!!! I phoned the number on the invoice, which turned out to be the Florida Department of Transportation/Sunpass, and a rude woman informed me I should never have called her because the bill had nothing to do with her department and she couldn't help me. After finally ferreting out Thrifty's customer service online, I talked with rep who explained the e-toll system, then told me all they could do was drop he $32.32 fee to $10 (apparently if we had purchased a toll pass as part of the rental agreement it would have cost $10 per day - we were never informed of this or about e-tolls at rental time). I agreed, informing her I would be reviewing Thrifty's service based on this lousy experience and that I hope weathering the possible decision of readers to opt out of Thrifty rentals was worth the $10 for them. So here it is. My recommendation? Avoid Trifty Car Rental Like the Plague. We had no such problems when we used Alamo for the same route. Maybe try them.