gouged.
|
My
wife had a conference in Anyway,
since MARTA is still utterly useless for anything except going to the
airport,
we rented a car from a Hertz place up the street. Just
like everything else, parking at the
hotel was way over-priced: $26 a day.
So, we parked in a garage across the street.
The garage, operated by Ameripark, had their
rates posted and in big letters it said “Max $16/day.”
This at least was a better deal than the
hotel, so we parked Saturday night.
Sunday morning we picked up the car to go to the zoo, paid
our $16, no
problem, and took off. We got back to
the garage about nine that night and parked again.
When I picked up the car at eight the next
morning, the bill was…$28. Huh? What
the hell? I found an attendant and asked
what was up, and the response was that I hadn’t read the fine print:
their
measure of a “day” restarted at 5am, so even though I had only parked
for
eleven hours, the first $16 only covered me until 5am, at which point
the meter
started running again, at some absurd rate that gets them to their
“$16/day”
maximum in about four hours. I’m still
not entirely clear why this hadn’t kicked in the day before; maybe we
got lucky
with a weekend rate or something. In any
event, it was clear I was screwed, so I shelled out the money and vowed
never
to return. So,
are we surprised? In the wake of a
financial meltdown instigated by fat cats in suits with fistfuls of
cash, maybe
not. High-end hotels cater to
businessmen with expense accounts, and set their prices to (a) keep out
the
rabble, and (b) extract as much cash from corporate America in two or
three
dollar increments as possible. I get a
kick out of the fact that Marriott’s lower level chains like Residence
Inn and
Courtyard offer free internet and parking, while at regular Marriotts
or
high-end ones like the Marquis they always charge you extra. I’m all in favor of soaking the rich, but
couldn’t they find a way to make an exception for those of us traveling
on our
own dime? As
for the Ameripark garage, those guys are just plain bastards. Their rate posting is confusing and
deceptive, and I’m sure it’s both intentional and designed specifically
to
sucker tourists staying at the surrounding hotels. This
is not a business that expects repeat customers. If
you’re traveling to |