HIDDEN FEES - DON'T TRUST THE QUOTE!
Put simply, if you rent with ACO they will charge you at least $10/day more than you think and, for what it is worth, you will likely have a long wait for the airport shuttle. There is a reason why this company has an F rating from the Better Business Bureau (sorry I can't post the link, but it's easy to google)
I reserved with ACO through Kayak and was quoted $34 (rounding off), which was easily the best price out there. In fact, I was charged $57. Of this additional amount (actually $23.04), $20 of it was a $10/day fee for declining loss damage waiver (LDW)(generally, unless you have your own source of insurance, rental companies charge some fee and thereby agree not to charge you if your rental car is damaged) and I cant exactly figure out which assorted fees account for the rest. I have NEVER heard of being charged for declining LDW and consider this a hidden fee and an unfair business practice. Essentially, even though I was quoted $33.98 I was either going to have to pay them $23/day more for LDW (which itself is an egregious price) or $10/day for declining it. The people at the counter said this was an additional service, but (a) its not a service; and (b) its not additional if everyone has to pay something more. The people at the counter provided a copy of their rental policy which says, "If you use your own insurance or a third party insurance you will be charged a recovery damage fee per day but this does not specify the amount (the rental policy on the ACO website does mention $10/day), is in no way linked from the Kayak site from what I can tell, and in any event requires way more reading than is fair to expect when booking a car. It is fair to expect that the price shown will be the price you pay unless you take some additional option. There was no possible scenario in which I would not have to pay at least an additional $10 per day over and above what I was quoted.
I had a previous on-airport reservation from Orbitz for $47.96 which I canceled in favor of this Kayak reservation. I ended up paying more and going off-airport. By the time I got to the rental counter and was told about the fee, there was nothing I could do because a last-minute car rental with anyone else would have cost more.
I should mention that if you were to rent through ACOs website the story would not be much better. They quote you a price and you can click on LDW and the price goes up $23. Only if you click on a link to their lengthy rental policy would you see that you will be charged $10/day if you dont pay them the $23 per day.
When I was at the counter, another family had the exact same problem I had and also said they were seasoned travelers and had never heard of anything like this before. Another person at the counter also had some problem with hidden insurance related fees, though I didnt understand exactly what they were saying.
As a side note, ACO is a bit more than 4 miles from the airport and from what I could tell only runs one shuttle. I waited for a shuttle for about 10 minutes when I got there (which isnt horrible) and about 20 minutes when I returned the car. Someone else said they waited a half hour at the airport for a pickup. So, even were you to end up saving some money with ACO, you would still be getting what you pay for.
