2 ms·

> I've never in my life seen price discrimination by citizenship like that before Go to any American car rental website and make a reservation as a visitor/wir

> I've never in my life seen price discrimination by citizenship like that before Go to any American car rental website and make a reservation as a visitor/wirh a foreign address (try a Europe or a low PPP country, airport pickup) and compare the rates for yourself. I don't know if a non-US proxy is necessary. You'll need a foreign credit card to complete a rental for real.

crazygringo 4y ago
tl;dr: Differences in rates appear to be due to taxes and different default options included, NOT country/citizenship discrimination. OK... I'm checking out Hertz using a VPN that puts me in Bucharest, Romania. In an incognito tab, at the OTP airport, Dec 1-8, 30+ yrs old, the 3 cheapest car is 233.29 euros with the button "pay at location". When I do it from a USA IP for the same airport and everything, it sends me to a different Hertz site that advertises the same cheapest car as 216.00 euros with a "pay later" option (same as "pay at location"), or 181.51 with "pay now". However, when I look at the fine print of what's actually included, the US site does NOT include sales/VAT tax (19%) or theft in the quote, which the Romanian quote does. There might be further differences too, since I'm only going by the bullet points and FAQ, not the actual agreement. All in all, it makes it challenging to compare prices because they change depending upon the options you select, and the default options are different depending on which country you're booking from. But the prices all seem close enough to suggest that prices are the same, and then any illusions of "oh it's 40% cheaper in this country rather than that one!" are NOT due to nationality, but simply due to whether the quote includes tax, theft, is prepaid or paid at counter, etc.
- inopinatus 4y ago
  From this and other remarks you seem very keen to demonstrate this is some kind of myth, but none of those items are relevant to my findings, and I didn’t use such an elaborate method, nor one so prone to glitches. I simply said “I’m from country X” during the booking process. Same website, same vehicle stock, same inclusions, same taxes, same T&Cs. 40% different rate code (actually 38%, if I recall precisely). Also, I have first-hand knowledge. I’ve worked on travel sector booking systems. Others here have explained in detail the many varieties of segmentation applied in the sector. From my experience of seeing the actual source code and business rules in a production system, they’re right. This is not an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. It’s already widely known and documented.
  - crazygringo 4y ago
    It is an extraordinary claim, and no it's not widely known and documented. I can't find any reliable Google results on it at all that indicates it's a common ongoing practice. And your explanation makes no sense, because prices are advertised clearly in searching long before any "I'm from country X" dropdown, which only appears in the final stages of booking. Prices don't change after you put in your driver's license nationality. Nor are you providing a single link to any site where anyone can test it out. So yes, it seems like a myth, an extraordinary claim that does require, well not extraordinary evidence, but just evidence at all.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]

crazygringo 4y ago

tl;dr: Differences in rates appear to be due to taxes and different default options included, NOT country/citizenship discrimination. OK... I'm checking out Hertz using a VPN that puts me in Bucharest, Romania. In an incognito tab, at the OTP airport, Dec 1-8, 30+ yrs old, the 3 cheapest car is 233.29 euros with the button "pay at location". When I do it from a USA IP for the same airport and everything, it sends me to a different Hertz site that advertises the same cheapest car as 216.00 euros with a "pay later" option (same as "pay at location"), or 181.51 with "pay now". However, when I look at the fine print of what's actually included, the US site does NOT include sales/VAT tax (19%) or theft in the quote, which the Romanian quote does. There might be further differences too, since I'm only going by the bullet points and FAQ, not the actual agreement. All in all, it makes it challenging to compare prices because they change depending upon the options you select, and the default options are different depending on which country you're booking from. But the prices all seem close enough to suggest that prices are the same, and then any illusions of "oh it's 40% cheaper in this country rather than that one!" are NOT due to nationality, but simply due to whether the quote includes tax, theft, is prepaid or paid at counter, etc.

inopinatus 4y ago
From this and other remarks you seem very keen to demonstrate this is some kind of myth, but none of those items are relevant to my findings, and I didn’t use such an elaborate method, nor one so prone to glitches. I simply said “I’m from country X” during the booking process. Same website, same vehicle stock, same inclusions, same taxes, same T&Cs. 40% different rate code (actually 38%, if I recall precisely). Also, I have first-hand knowledge. I’ve worked on travel sector booking systems. Others here have explained in detail the many varieties of segmentation applied in the sector. From my experience of seeing the actual source code and business rules in a production system, they’re right. This is not an extraordinary claim requiring extraordinary evidence. It’s already widely known and documented.
- crazygringo 4y ago
  It is an extraordinary claim, and no it's not widely known and documented. I can't find any reliable Google results on it at all that indicates it's a common ongoing practice. And your explanation makes no sense, because prices are advertised clearly in searching long before any "I'm from country X" dropdown, which only appears in the final stages of booking. Prices don't change after you put in your driver's license nationality. Nor are you providing a single link to any site where anyone can test it out. So yes, it seems like a myth, an extraordinary claim that does require, well not extraordinary evidence, but just evidence at all.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]