timill: (Default)
timill ([personal profile] timill) wrote2006-07-26 11:43 am

The Free Market In Action

So, for obvious reasons, I was looking at car rental options at Knoxville Airport in the near future. NexTag suggested that Alamo would be cheapest, so I looked at www.alamo.com.

If I live in the USA, I have a choice of 10 car classes; if I live in the UK, I only get six.

As a USAn, the cost of a compact car for 2 weeks is $310.18; as a Brit, it costs $566.00 for the same period.

Bah, I thought, and flipped to the next page. Add in CDW, EP and return fuel to the USA price, and the total cost shoots up to $964.48 with all taxes. With the UK price, all I have to add is the return fuel - CDW and EP are included - and the total cost is $607.82

As our transatlantic cousins say, go figure...