Traveler's Aide: Automatic toll trips rental car customer

Question: Last summer, I traveled to Florida with my daughter and we rented a car from Avis. During the trip, we drove from Destin to Crestview, and crossed the Mid-Bay Bridge. We knew it had a $4 toll, and we paid it in cash, handing the money to an attendant rather than using an automated machine.

As we drove on, we saw a second sign further down that stated a second toll of $2 would be due. We gathered money to pay, but as we drove on we saw a sign saying something about using a SunPass or using a toll by plate. I was unsure what that meant. We kept waiting to see a toll plaza or some other kind of toll machine, but we never saw a way to pay the toll.

A few weeks later, I got my credit card bill and noticed a charge from Avis for $13.85. I called Avis, and the representative told me it was a charge for a toll by plate in Florida. I explained that I had been ready to pay the toll but couldn’t find anywhere to pay. Avis said they couldn’t help me. I called the Florida department for toll roads and they said they couldn’t do anything either.

I didn’t hear anything about this when I initially rented the car from Avis. Something is wrong when a $2 toll ends up costing $13.85. Can you do anything to help me?

— Denise Kraemer, Tulsa

Answer: Kraemer was understandably irritated by the add-on toll payment fees to her rental bill, weeks after she returned the car. She’s not alone: The Florida Attorney General’s office has logged 192 toll-related complaints since January 2016.

“We are addressing the bulk of these through ongoing negotiations with several major rental car companies that do business in Florida to ensure that the companies provide sufficient disclosures regarding the administrative fees they charge related to cashless tolls and give clear and complete information regarding cashless tolls,” says Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi.

In the meantime, visitors need to be aware that the Sunshine State uses cashless tolls — and protect themselves from what many say are excessive fees charged by rental companies for paying those tolls.

Don't let the toll road slow you down

Florida has more than 700 miles of toll roads, more than any other state. Many stretches use electronic tolling, with drivers paying those tolls either via a toll-by-plate system, which reads cars’ license plates and sends a monthly bill to registered owners in the mail, or by pinging transponders installed in the vehicles and deducting tolls from their accounts.

All-electronic tolling first went into effect on Florida’s Turnpike in February 2011, when the southern 47 miles of the Turnpike Mainline in Miami was converted to a cashless system, according to Chad Huff of Florida’s Turnpike Enterprise, a unit of the Florida Department of Transportation. Florida’s Turnpike administers most, but not all, of the state’s toll roads.

All-electronic tolling isn’t exclusive to Florida; drivers encounter cashless roads and bridges across the U.S., including in California, Colorado, and New York, as well as countries around the world. The system certainly has its benefits: Cashless toll roads are faster and safer, since drivers don’t get stuck in toll-plaza backups or need to fumble for change, raising the risk of accidents. In Florida, ever-increasing miles of road will use all-electronic tolling, as existing highways are retrofit to remove toll plazas. A decade ago, the Florida Department of Transportation mandated that all new toll roads must utilize cashless tolling.

But complaints crop up when visitors are caught unawares, blithely cruising down parkways with their toll payments in hand and baffled when there’s no one to hand it to. These renters end up paying a premium. It’s not usually the tolls themselves that garner consumer outrage — often individual tolls are less than $1 — but extra fees rental agencies slap on top of those tolls.

Kraemer incurred a $2 toll on the Spence Parkway, an 11-mile stretch of highway that connects to the Mid-Bay Bridge in the Florida Panhandle, but is tolled separately from the bridge itself. The tolls are collected by the Mid-Bay Bridge Authority. While the bridge itself still has booths where you can pay tolls in cash, the Spence Parkway does not; it’s been all-electronic since 2015. Its open-road, all-electronic tolling means drivers can pay without stopping or even slowing down.

Kraemer could have paid the toll herself had she purchased a SunPass transponder beforehand. SunPass is the state’s most widely used prepaid tolling program. For a short-term visitor like Kraemer, the SunPass mini sticker transponder is the cheapest and easiest option. The mini sticker is $4.99 and can be purchased online or at one of almost 5,000 retail locations including CVS, Walgreens and Publix. You must load it with $10 minimum for tolls. After your trip, you can close your account and request a refund check by mail from SunPass. The sticker goes on your rental car’s windshield, and you remove it when returning the car. It’s not reusable; it’ll be destroyed when you peel it off. Repeat visitors might invest in portable SunPass transponder, which costs $19.99, plus $10 for the account minimum balance. As an incentive, SunPass customers pay lower tolls than cash customers, if cash is even an option.

Without a SunPass, Kraemer’s rental car was charged a toll by plate, meaning the camera system on the Spence Parkway photographed her license plate and sent the bill to Avis. Like other rental car companies, Avis also has its own transponders in some cars in its fleet as well.

Kraemer ended up repaying Avis for that $2 Spence Parkway toll, plus an additional $3.95 per day for three days on top of that. Avis’ policy allows for that daily charge with a monthly cap of $19.75 per month, plus toll charges, of course.

The same daily fees and monthly maximums are in place at Budget, National, Alamo and Enterprise. Payless rings in with a slightly lower daily fee of $2.95, with the same monthly fee cap. Hertz tacks on a little more, charging $4.95 per day, or a maximum of $24.75 per month.

With these rental car companies, drivers don’t need to decide at the counter if they’re going to use the company’s toll-payment system. Once they trigger a toll, they’re automatically opted-in for the rest of their rental, according to Avis representative Alice Pereira — and like Kraemer, they’re charged a daily free from that point on regardless of whether they actually use additional toll roads.

Opting in at the counter may not be such a bargain, either. At Dollar and Thrifty, drivers also have to buy the toll-payment option for their entire rentals, not just for days they need it. Dollar and Thrifty charge $10.49 per day, capped at $52.49 per week, for their “all-inclusive” tolling with PlatePass, which includes the actual tolls. That would have cost Kraemer quite a bit more than she paid Avis for her one jaunt down the parkway.

If you skip the daily fee but end up triggering a toll charge, the penalties are considerably higher. Dollar and Thrifty will hit you with an administrative fee of $15 per toll, up to $90 total, as well as the actual toll costs, according to representative Lauren Luster. Similarly, Fox charges $8.99 per day, with a maximum of $134.85 per 15-day rental, and it likewise pops travelers with a $15 per-toll infraction fee, up to $90 per rental agreement.

Rental car companies are required to disclose their toll-collection fees. But renters can miss the details; Kraemer said she had no idea about Avis’ fees until she got her credit card statement. I sent her complaint to Avis. A company representative reached out to her and agreed to remove the $11.85 in fees from her bill, so she ended up paying for just the $2 toll.

How can you avoid trouble?

• Plan your route to avoid tolls. Before you leave home, read up on whether you’ll encounter all-electronic toll roads or bridges as part of your destination planning. On the road, you can direct Google Maps and other navigation programs to avoid toll roads, and see if alternate routes are feasible or ridiculous. Sometimes, though, it’s just not possible to avoid tolls.

• Figure out what your rental car company charges, since fees vary widely. The local toll authority’s website might provide you with a comparative synopsis of the leading rental car companies’ procedures and fees — information you might use to either pick your rental or plan your toll strategy.

• If it’s compatible, use your own transponder from home. Many states are moving towards interoperability. In Florida, motorists from Georgia and North Carolina can use their home state’s tolling transponders, and other states will follow as necessary equipment is installed, according to Huff. Not all transponders will work: For now, the E-ZPass, accepted in 16 states across the Midwest and Northeast, cannot be used in Florida.

• Buy your own transponder. Florida’s SunPass makes it easy to buy before your trip, doesn’t require a transponder deposit, and will refund your unused balance when you close your account. If you use your own, check to see if your rental has a transponder already installed, and switch it off.

• Opt in to your rental car company’s toll-payment system. This is the most expensive choice, but it is also the simplest. Find out if you need to opt in ahead of time to avoid hefty administrative fees.

Do you have a travel consumer issue you'd like Traveler's Aide to pursue? Email Linda Burbank at usattravelersaide@gmail.com. Your question may be used in a future column.