Express Fuel Option Has Spread to Dollar and Thrifty: Charged should you Drive That Car rental Less than 75 Miles Without Refueling

B oth Dollar Rent An automobile and Thrifty Rental car have introduced a new policy for the most part locations in the Netherlands for your “convenience” known as the Express Fuel option where customers who drive 75 miles or less during a rental of a vehicle is going to be charged a service and convenience fee of $13.99 – regardless of how much fuel was consumed throughout the rental of the vehicle – and this policy has experienced effect since Monday, August 17, 2020.

“No more having to be worried about the amount of fuel in your tank or hunting for a service station: just return and pay a reasonably priced one-time flat fee!” pronounced the exuberant text of the announcement from both Dollar Rent An automobile and Thrifty Car Rental. “If you drive 75 miles or less and prefer to refuel yourself, simply present an invoice in the gas station in which you filled up, showing that the vehicle was refilled within a 10 mile radius of the return location.”

What the Announcement Really Said

What the text really said is when you're the kind of person who seems to keep the appearance of the fuel gauge as full despite having driven a large number of miles in the rental car without spending anything to fill the gas tank, your glory days are essentially over.

Other Options

For vehicle rentals greater than 75 miles, both Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental provide the following options that you can choose:

• Prepay the Fuel – also known as the Fuel Purchase Option
  • No need to refuel the vehicle before you decide to return.
  • Purchase the gas within the tank sometimes of rental and you can return at any level.
  • Price is as good as local pump prices.
• We Refuel – also known as the Fuel and repair Charge
  • The vehicle is going to be refueled for you personally through the car rental company.
  • Return the car using the gas at any level.
• • Price is for fuel and refueling service combined.
• You Refuel
  • You refuel prior to return.
  • Make sure fuel is at least the same level you began with at the beginning of the rental.
  • Produce a refueling receipt from inside 10 miles from the return location.

This Policy Really Hertz

After rivaling Avis, a press release from Hertz Global Holdings announced in April of 2010 its intent to acquire Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental. The transaction was completed in November 2012 inside a deal worth approximately $2.3 billion…

…so it is no real surprise that this policy from both Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental is similar to a revision within the conditions and terms of renting an automobile from Hertz which pertains to rentals in the Netherlands and Canada – also known as the Express Fuel Option – which became effective as of Wednesday, July 15, 2020:

Beginning on 7/15/2020 you will see a brand new refueling option for Hertz rentals within the Netherlands. This Express Fuel option applies at select locations to rentals where the whole distance driven is 75 miles or less. If you drive 75 miles or less and do not purchase gas, or purchase gas but fail to create a receipt, a charge of $13.99 is going to be applied. Should you drive 75 miles or less and produce an invoice of a fuel purchase made during your rental, the $13.99 charge will not be applied.

At time this article was written, there was some poor proofreading on the information for the announcement from Thrifty Car Rental: the very first line of the last item of the faq's mentions Dollar rather than Thrifty.

The announcement from Dollar Rent An automobile seems to be correct.

By the Numbers – Loosely, Anyway

Assuming the car your rented achieved 25 miles per gallon during your rental and you drove 75 miles – and therefore your rental car consumed three gallons of fuel – this means that at $13.99, you will be charged the equivalent of approximately $4.66 per gallon; however, if the car your rented achieved 18.75 mpg on your rental and you drove 75 miles – and therefore your car rental consumed four gallons of fuel – that means that at $13.99, you will be charged the equivalent of approximately $3.50 per gallon.

Either way – in a current national average of $2.002 per gallon for normal gasoline, according to the Daily Fuel Gauge Report of the American Automobile Association – both Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental are most likely cashing in on the brand new Express Fuel Option-

-but then again, you never know how much cash both Dollar Rent An automobile and Thrifty Rental car – or customers of these rental car companies – lost in becoming short-changed on fuel.

Summary

Express Fuel is an option. You are still able to choose the Fuel Purchase Option where one can purchase fuel ahead of time at competitive local prices; and return the vehicle with the tank at any level.

I know that when I rent a car, I expect the fuel tank to become full. After i rented an automobile earlier this year from the different rental car company, the indicator of the fuel gauge was clearly just shy of full. An agent from the car rental company assured me never fear about this; however when I returned the car with the fuel gauge exactly just shy of full – that was no easy task, by the way – a different representative tried to point that fact out to me. I prevailed for the reason that exchange, thankfully.

Due to poor business decisions for both Dollar Rent A Car and Thrifty Car Rental when I patronized them previously, I no more rent from either of them and refuse to ever do so again; but if you intend on hiring a car from either car rental company later on, you should know about the Express Fuel Option just in case you anticipate any problems or issues.