Budget and Avis (which are the same company, though operated as separate brands) announced that they were banning smoking in all their rental cars in North America.

Effective October 1, 2009, smoking will be off limits. If you do smoke in the car, there will be a $250 cleaning fee. The ban also applies to employees, who typically get to use a car for their personal transportation as a perk of the job.

To be honest, I haven’t noticed many smoky rental cars lately. They’ve been so rare (either because people aren’t smoking in rentals, or the cleaning process is so much better) that I’ve gotten to the point where I haven’t even thought to request a non-smoking car anymore. I can’t even remember the last time I made such a request.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see other companies follow suit. But there will almost assuredly be a company that doesn’t ban smoking, much like hotels, where some chains (e.g., Marriott, Westin) have gone smoke free, but most others have retained a mix of smoking and non-smoking offerings. (Will there be surcharges for renting a car that permits smoking, going forward?)

While drivers will still need to keep your eyes on the road, Avis and Budget are partnering with AT&T’s CruiseCast to beam television channels into rental cars.

For $8.95 a day, the passengers in the backseat will never need to part with their precious television. Sorry, no Tivo option yet…

Unsurprisingly, the channel lineup is heavily tilted toward kids’ programming. Disney Channel, Disney XD, Discovery Kids, Animal Planet, Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network Mobile, USA, COMEDY CENTRAL, MSNBC, CNN Mobile Live and CNBC. Perhaps ironically, the Travel Channel is being added soon.

Cars will be outfitted with a roof antenna (pictured), and the streaming video will be cached for three minutes, to prevent signal drop when you lose a direct line of sight to the satellite.

Budget and Avis are pitching it to both vacationing families and business travelers. The family angle, I get. The business traveler, not so much. Keep CNN or the Colbert Report running in the background while you drive?

Is this something you’d opt for in a rental car? Hit the comments!

Hat tip Budget Travel

Last November, the Federal Trade Commission ruled that Budget Rent-a-Car couldn’t impose an automatic fuel fee for those customers driving fewer than 75 miles. Budget was charging the fee even when those customers returned the car with a full tank.

But the fee wasn’t outlawed because it was obnoxious, or extortionary, or patently unfair. It was banned because customers weren’t adequately notified of the fee, or how they could get around paying it by presenting fuel receipts at the time of return.

So much for quick dropoffs. Readers in the past have reported that rental car check-in agents, with their handheld scanners and receipt printers, aren’t always able to override the <75 mile fuel fee. Renters are sent back inside, to wait in line. Agencies are banking on your unwillingness to risk missing your shuttle (and your flight) and just biting the bullet on the fee.

The FTC's decision didn't eliminate the fee, and it's not limited to Budget. It's still out there, just amplified with a big sticky note.

See for example the note attached to Tyler Colman’s rental agreement at Portland Airport this past week, when he rented with Avis. The fee: $13.99. “EZFuel,” eh? Bilking the customer is oh so EZ !

Related:
- Low Mileage, High Surcharges

Want to class up that rental car? Avis launched a new service in ten cities today, letting Avis Preferred members hire a chauffeur to drive them around.

As part of the new “Chauffeur Drive” program, the drivers are provided and billed by WeDriveU, which specializes in this sort of thing, and by not Avis.

Personally, I love the idea of someone renting a little crapbox like a Kia Rio, but insisting on having a chauffeur. Somebody please do it, if just for the photos.

But more seriously, this could come in handy if time is short, and you want both an airport pickup and the freedom to drive your own butt around town. Your chauffeur can pick up your car and be there ready to pick you up at the airport, curbside. They can also do drop-offs. Thereafter, you can drive the car yourself, as normal.

Every time you use their service, it has a three-hour minimum, but you can dismiss the driver at any time. Of course, hiring the help isn’t cheap ($30/hour), and it requires 24 hours notice.

Avis has featured chauffeur service in certain cities outside the US, such as Mexico City, for some time, but the joint venture with WeDriveU will be available in Boston, Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Phoenix, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C.

Details here.

Two readers wrote in regarding late returns and grace periods when renting a car. Reader Francine writes:

When I rented a car from National recently, there was no grace period for late returns. None! Is this the latest way they get you?

And reader Peter offers this story, and advice, from his recent rental with Budget Rent-a-Car in Montreal:

I was late getting out of Vermont and late getting the car back to the airport. When I arrived I discovered that I had signed a contract that stipulated $33.xx CAD/hour for being late on a $55/day rental. Further, since I was 2hrs 15 minutes late they claimed I was 3 hours late (the grace period disappeared) and they charged me for another DAY, stating it would cost me less than 3 hours of the late charge.

I haven’t had any luck getting Budget to discuss this with me. If you rent from anyone be clear at pickup 1) what constitutes late and 2) what it costs when you are.

Indeed, grace periods are no longer a given when it comes to late returns. Hertz cut their grace period in half a year ago, and others soon followed suit. Nowadays, you really need to know what you’re signing (and initialing).

In Peter’s case, I see only one possible “violation” here on the part of the company: The forfeit of the grace period. But even then, if he returned the car two hours late (instead of three), he’s better off paying a full day extra, rather than two hours’ overtime. It sucks, but those are the terms.

With contracts like this, if you signed for it, you’re on the hook. These hourly rates are one of the items you’re often asked to initial.

Not all companies are the same, though: Late-return policies vary by chain, with some chains offering no grace periods whatsoever.

Perhaps even more importantly, some companies reserve the right to retroactively change your rate to a higher level — for the duration of the entire rental — if you return the car late. If anything, Peter was lucky they didn’t change his rate for the earlier days as well!

The policies of each major U.S. chain, with key points highlighted, after the jump:
(more…)

Upgraded: Electric power at JFK Airport
More power, Scotty! Through an agreement with the Port Authority, Samsung will be installing electrical charging stations in each terminal of New York’s JFK Airport. Each of the 50 8.5-foot poles will have four separate outlets, suitable for charging your laptop or cellphone. (via NewYorkology)

Downgraded: Hilton Suites Phoenix
Opera soprano Alison Trainer is suing Hilton Hotels for subjecting her to a week of bedbugs at the Hilton Suites in Phoenix. “She looks like a piece of wood that has been attacked by termites,” said Trainer’s attorney, Kenneth J. Glassman. But why would she stay in the hotel — or even in the room — for a full week once she started noticing she had multiple bites in the morning?

Ms. Trainer’s roommate at the Hilton Suites Phoenix

Downgraded: Loyalty card kickbacks
Ron Lieber of the Wall Street Journal runs the numbers for his 2006 spending and loyalty point earnings. He values his rewards at $4,850. And that’s DOWN 78% from his previous year’s earnings? Yowza, nice work! But the takeaway: In the past year, it’s gotten harder to get a solid “return” on your credit cards, with banks less and less likely to give 5% rebates on everyday purchases.

Upgraded, I guess: Palmdale, California
Palmdale, 70 miles from Los Angeles, it has added “LA” to its airport name. I always think this renaming of airports to employ the big city’s name amounts to deceptive practice. (”Chicago Rockford International Airport”? Sorry, folks, Rockford isn’t Chicago. It’s 90 miles away.) But the plan seems to have worked, if the goal was to attract airline service and/or reduce load on LAX. (See here for a skeptical account of Palmdale’s chances.) Delta and United are both hoping to start service to the airport.

Upgraded: Avis rental cars; Downgraded: Private time
Avis is working with Autonet Mobile to create in-car mobile wireless hotspots. For $10.95 a day, a unit in the car creates a local hotspot for use with regular wi-fi cards. The signal, in turn, is transmitted along a cellular network to hit the big pipes on the internet. It’s a nice service, if you’re going to be using your laptop from your car. But jeez, do we really need to be THAT accessible?

Downgraded: Snowglobes
Sure, liquids are prohibited. But don’t forget, that includes snowglobes. Sigh.

Downgraded: Flour, sugar, eggs, Philadelphia
Hot tip: If you really need to transport flour through airports, don’t carry it in a condom. But if you DO arrest someone for carrying flour through an airport in condoms, don’t keep her in jail for three weeks, like Philadelphia did. The flour “mule” will sue. And you’ll pay her handsomely. (Thanks to Benet Wilson)

Upgraded: This blog?
Voting for the Bloggies is open. Vote early and often for your favorite blogs, as long as you vote by January 10. Shameless self-promotion aside: May the best blogs win!

I’ve been lucky to avoid the latest round of security mayhem, not having flown in the past week. But the missus flew United Airlines to and from Boston recently, and her report leads me to believe that the airline is, at best, missing an opportunity to build its customer base in light of the recent restrictions.

It’s irritating, of course, that one can’t take liquids onto the plane, even those purchased in the supposedly secure area past the checkpoints. And the UK even advises you not to have EMPTY bottles in your baggage. So the airlines are stepping up and serving more drinks in flight, right? Right?

Wrong. Not United. Tuesday’s flight 537 from Boston to Chicago featured a single beverage service from the cart. No walk-through with a pitcher of water, or coffee, or anything. I’m sure you could have walked to the galley and asked for a drink, but with the embargo on onboard fluids, this seems like particularly thin service, even for a short 2-hour 10-minute flight.

In the past few days, hotel chains like Omni and Wyndham have been trying to win over clients by promising free lotions, makeup, and toiletries. Avis is putting Procter & Gamble amenity packs on the passenger seats of rental cars. And the airlines?

United tries to sell itself as a premium brand within the domestic U.S. market. They advertise their Economy Plus and premium transcontinental service. They still have free headphones, pillows, blankets, etc. But the airline isn’t adding water to the catering order?

From what I’m hearing, other airlines are not any better, and haven’t made any effort to improve service either. Air travel is the epicenter of the security-related inconvenience, and yet the airlines aren’t doing much to help matters.

A smart airline would 1) make an effort to assure passengers that their time on board the plane will be a relief compared to the time in the airport. Getting more water on board, at a minimum, would be a start. 2) Then market the fact that the airline is trying to help. Blast an e-mail to its customer base, telling them what they’re doing to reduce passenger frustrations, for a start.

Seems pretty easy. It’s been over a week. Why hasn’t any airline stepped up?

Related:
- The future of airport security: Predictions and wish-lists

It’s been nearly a year since I rented a car which actually came with a full tank of gas. Seemingly every time, the needle is hovering somewhere near 3/4 tank.

This always bugs me, because you’re supposed to return the fuel at the same level, and it’s quite hard to fill the tank to precisely 5/8 or 3/4 tank. Go below that point, and they’ll charge you extortionary fuel prices. Go above that line, and you’re giving a gift of gasoline to the company. Over time, I’m sure the company makes out quite well with this, charging penalties to some and pocketing free gas from the others. Win-win for them.

So now Budget and Avis have come up with a new way to annoy and exploit the renter, and they have the chutzpah to say that this is a convenience. Keith Alexander in the Washington Post reports:

To help offset gasoline prices, Budget Rent a Car is imposing an additional $9.50 charge on all vehicles driven fewer than 75 miles.
[...]
The new charge is aimed at renters who drive short distances and don’t fill up their tanks before they return because the gas gauge still reads “full,” even though the tank is a few gallons short. In the past, Budget filled the tank and billed the customer the highest rate. But now, Budget will impose the $9.50 charge even if the renter tops off the tank before returning the car. The charge will be removed only if customers show their gas receipt to a Budget agent, one traveler has already reported, slowing travelers often rushing to catch flights.

…and I’m sure they’ll be asking every customer for their gas receipt and happily volunteering to take that charge off. Sure. What a convenience!

Keep that gas receipt, show it to the attendant when you return the car, and watch the bill.