5 ms·

For those who don’t know, the issue in the US with not knowing the hotel or car rental costs is typically taxes. Different places have different taxes and those

by mfer 6y ago

For those who don’t know, the issue in the US with not knowing the hotel or car rental costs is typically taxes. Different places have different taxes and those are often not shared at the time one books. I’ve been using fixed price services (they exist) just so I don’t run into what Chris did. They aren’t evangelized as well.

namdnay 6y ago
Hotel I agree, Rental car less so: the final price always seems to be about 2x the advertised daily rate so I think there is more at play than taxes
- lostmsu 6y ago
  I always paid in advance, and never noticed this.
- ghaff 6y ago
  There are a ton of fees added on to rental cars, especially when you rent at the airport, in addition to taxes. I wouldn't have said 2x the base rate but you can definitely hit 30-40% uplift. When comparison shopping rental car pricing, you absolutely have to know if it's the base rate or the all-in price. Hotels have some of this but the overall uplift is usually a lot less--at least until they start adding "resort fees" to otherwise discounted rooms.
ta1234567890 6y ago
That's just the excuse for doing it. But tax rates are known ahead of time, they could just add the tax to the price and put it on the sticker, just like pretty much every other place in the world does. In my opinion, it's a very deceiving practice that could definitely be fixed if businesses really wanted to fix it. But there's no incentive, because if you show your prices including tax and fees, they'll seem more expensive than the competition. In the case of hotels, my experience is that with a lot of them you book online, pay the total, but then when you go check out, they've added some extra fees. Sometimes this happens before booking, you browse the options and choose based on price, but when you go check out, the total has changed because they've added not only taxes but some other fees as well. My most recent experience having this issue was with AirBnb just two days ago.
yardie 6y ago
If they rental agency is paying those taxes then they are aware of them, have them entered into their CRM, and can inform you anytime by pulling a simple DB query. There is no excuse in 2020 to not know exactly what the price is and keep that from your customers. I deal with reputable rental companies. The rental price is based on demand but everything else is a known quantity. I’ve never had the quote priced higher than the online quote. And in a few cases I’ve had it go down by using certain credit cards or loyalty programs.
cmehdy 6y ago
Taxes are different in France and in Spain, and all the prices in every place will show you the price of what you're doing, tax-included. One can move freely between the countries, use the same currency, and settle down in either place (given you're in the EU). This works despite the languages being different, and the governments being different. It also happens to work in quite a few more countries too. I think I'm missing something when people use the excuse of "taxes are different in different places" to say "we don't show taxes out of habit, or because it requires us to change our signs".
- liquidgecka 6y ago
  In the us the tax rate can change city by city. Even Up code is not enough to know the tax rate. :-/
  - ta1234567890 6y ago
    The store/business still knows ahead of time the exact tax rate for what you are buying at the location you are buying it. So that really is no excuse for not disclosing that info pre-purchase.
  - cesarb 6y ago
    > In the us the tax rate can change city by city. In Brazil, the tax rate also changes city by city, and the price shown to the customer already includes that tax (together with the state tax and the federal tax).

by mfer 6y ago

namdnay 6y ago

Hotel I agree, Rental car less so: the final price always seems to be about 2x the advertised daily rate so I think there is more at play than taxes

lostmsu 6y ago
I always paid in advance, and never noticed this.
ghaff 6y ago
There are a ton of fees added on to rental cars, especially when you rent at the airport, in addition to taxes. I wouldn't have said 2x the base rate but you can definitely hit 30-40% uplift. When comparison shopping rental car pricing, you absolutely have to know if it's the base rate or the all-in price. Hotels have some of this but the overall uplift is usually a lot less--at least until they start adding "resort fees" to otherwise discounted rooms.

ta1234567890 6y ago

That's just the excuse for doing it. But tax rates are known ahead of time, they could just add the tax to the price and put it on the sticker, just like pretty much every other place in the world does. In my opinion, it's a very deceiving practice that could definitely be fixed if businesses really wanted to fix it. But there's no incentive, because if you show your prices including tax and fees, they'll seem more expensive than the competition. In the case of hotels, my experience is that with a lot of them you book online, pay the total, but then when you go check out, they've added some extra fees. Sometimes this happens before booking, you browse the options and choose based on price, but when you go check out, the total has changed because they've added not only taxes but some other fees as well. My most recent experience having this issue was with AirBnb just two days ago.

yardie 6y ago

If they rental agency is paying those taxes then they are aware of them, have them entered into their CRM, and can inform you anytime by pulling a simple DB query. There is no excuse in 2020 to not know exactly what the price is and keep that from your customers. I deal with reputable rental companies. The rental price is based on demand but everything else is a known quantity. I’ve never had the quote priced higher than the online quote. And in a few cases I’ve had it go down by using certain credit cards or loyalty programs.

cmehdy 6y ago

Taxes are different in France and in Spain, and all the prices in every place will show you the price of what you're doing, tax-included. One can move freely between the countries, use the same currency, and settle down in either place (given you're in the EU). This works despite the languages being different, and the governments being different. It also happens to work in quite a few more countries too. I think I'm missing something when people use the excuse of "taxes are different in different places" to say "we don't show taxes out of habit, or because it requires us to change our signs".

liquidgecka 6y ago
In the us the tax rate can change city by city. Even Up code is not enough to know the tax rate. :-/
- ta1234567890 6y ago
  The store/business still knows ahead of time the exact tax rate for what you are buying at the location you are buying it. So that really is no excuse for not disclosing that info pre-purchase.
- cesarb 6y ago
  > In the us the tax rate can change city by city. In Brazil, the tax rate also changes city by city, and the price shown to the customer already includes that tax (together with the state tax and the federal tax).