The Vacation Chronicles (2)

Still Day One - Saturday, December 1, 2012

We had a safe trip on the plane to the Denver airport, despite the turbulence. By the time we arrived and took the shuttle to the rental car place it was about 4 p.m. which really doesn't seem that late but in Colorado they are two hours behind us so it starts getting dark around 4:30.

We used Thrifty rental for our rental car, because I got the best deal with them for a week for a mid-size car. Estimated price of rental $160.48, actual cost of rental $293.68. Just a word of advice I would recommend to not use Thrifty rental because Thrifty isn't so thrifty!

By the time we rented the car we were both exhausted and obviously not paying close attention to all of the additional fees that we were getting charged for. The guy asked if we wanted a second driver, I said sure not thinking that there was a charge for it. I knew more than likely I wouldn't be driving anyway and why didn't the guy mention that there was a cost for it?

We drove away from the rental place thinking we were doing good up to this point then it hit me, I asked Jim, "How much was the rental car?" He replied, "I don't know", and handed me the receipt to look at while he was driving. I took one look at it and said "Honey, they charged us $293.68! This was supposed to only be around $160.48." Being quite angry I got on the phone to Thrifty and they proceeded to explain to me that we were charged $10 per day for an additional driver, and for a toll pass, and so on.

I explained that we were not told there was a charge for an additional driver, but they told me the only way to change it was to come back and write up a new contract. At that point we were well on our way to our destination, so we argued about it for a bit and decided to continue on. Jim got frustrated because I was upset and I got frustrated because he was getting upset that I was upset. Makes sense, right?

We continued on, while making phone calls to the resort to find out if there had been any change in the evacuation situation, but of course there had not. They did give us two different options of places that were offering discounts due to people being displaced. One option was a discount of $130 per night at a lodge (that's a discount?) and the other option was a hotel offering a discount of $69 per night.

Naturally, we went with the second option with the positive attitude that it would be for only one night. Wait till you hear where we ended up spending our first four nights.