Yeah, the whole car rental experience actually ended quite sour. My wife and I awoke between 3:00am and 3:30am for our flight back home from Disney World. I was on approximately 90 minutes worth of sleep due to my love of Disney theme parks. I thought about fueling up near the hotel and then just topping off when I got close to the airport. The airport is about 20 miles away from the Kissimmee ‘Maingate’ area, so I was going to burn approximately a gallon of fuel; an amount that was likely to be noticeable upon return. I didn’t want to make two stops so I decided even though it was likely more expensive to fuel up near the airport, it was worth the money to save on time and be certain we were checked-in and ready for our flight.
I could not have been more wrong.
Fuel near our hotel was $3.45 a gallon. At the two Suncoast Energy, price-fixing gas stations near the airport: $5.79. That was for the cheap stuff. It was a nearly 68% increase over market rate. And both gas stations were priced at the same number. At best, the pricing of fuel there could be described as silly and immoral. In truth, it’s just flat out gouging of the tourists that provide the area jobs.
This may seem whiny, but I feel someone from Thrifty should have warned us about the gas prices near the airport. There’s no way they couldn’t know. It wouldn’t be that difficult to pass along that the two closest gas stations near the airport are known to price-gouge their customers and Thirfty suggests that you fill up away from the airport and only top-off at the gas stations closest to the airport. (With the reminder that the tank must be retuned full.) This should be mentioned only after (of course) the client refuses the Thrifty-tank option where Thrifty charges their customers for a full tank of fuel no matter how full the tank is at a price approximately 15% more than market rate. In hindsight, that would have been a much better option.
I was also disappointed in the podcasts to which I am a giddy subscriber. I’ve never heard Lou Mongello, the boys over at WDW Today or Ricky Brigante speak about price gouging near the airport, but a quick Google search this morning revealed that I’m definitely not the only person who has experienced price gouging from this company. Posts on RipoffReport.com are the first entries to popup on Google when searching the company. Brigante’s operation has a ‘Tip of the Week’ segment and I’ll definitely be writing in concerning this ordeal.
This much I can assure you: I’ll never experience that problem again with a car rental. I will give myself enough time to fuel up at a reasonable rate and top-off as I approach the airport. If I would like to seek some revenge against Suncoast Energy, I might top-off in this manner.)
ToSuncoast Energy, You have taught me well. I’ll only get burned once, though.
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