Business Traveller (Asia-Pacific)
Expert solutions to your travel queries
When I was in London last summer I had an incident with Avis’s Euston branch, which charged me £95 (US$159) for failing to pay a congestion charge.
I disputed it with my credit card firm, which replied that as I had signed the dotted line, Avis had the right to charge me anything extra after the final invoice was issued.
Nobody at Avis ever told me to pay this charge. At no point was it mentioned to me or all the people in the queue. There was no poster or reminder in the contract. Your comments please.
Sang Fung, Cape Town I guess we’ll never know exactly what happened here. But let Sang Fung’s experience be a cautionary tale for all of our out-of-town readers, whether based here or overseas, of the pitfalls in renting a car in a major European city.
The rental firms make it sound so easy but in reality Europe’s big cities have a maze of rules and regulations designed to dissuade motorists. What’s more, in London, private drivers have to pay a congestion fee when travelling within the central area during the working day.
Customers hiring a vehicle “sign their lives away” when completing the rental agreement. In the case of Avis there are two branches within London’s congestion area, with a third (Euston) located just outside the northern boundary. Therefore, if you rent from Euston during the time the congestion charge applies, you will pay the fee depending on which direction you exit the branch. Head north and you don’t pay. Head south and you will pay.
In fact, London is such a tricky city for the uninitiated that it’s possible to incur fines running into hundreds of pounds should you, for example, mis-park, enter a bus or cycle lane, a cycle box or a box junction. And that’s in addition to mastering the rules of the road, avoiding other vehicles, pedestrians and the growing number of cyclists.
So anyone planning to hire a car in a major European city during the coming months should do his or her homework. In an emailed statement to
Business Traveller, Avis said: “We understand that customers rely on our local knowledge and so all our London branches have details on the congestion charge displayed on screens within each station and also in the form of leaflets to pick up. Our teams in the branches are also on hand to advise customers and make sure they are aware of any unique laws and rules.
“In the two Avis sites that are within the congestion charge zone, Waterloo and Marble Arch, we explain the costs to our customers and offer them a convenient way to pay for the first day’s charge at the time of picking up the vehicle.”
See www.tfl.gov.uk for details of the congestion charge, hours of operation and payment methods. Tomorrow I am taking the train to Brussels [from Berlin] and have to pay 19 per cent VAT on my ticket. Not a level playing field. Don’t you agree?
Jon Worth, Berlin A Public transport users in the UK do not know how lucky they are. Yes, we grumble about the cost of APD (air passenger duty) and the price of train tickets but our travel is VATfree. This is unlike the situation in certain European countries where VAT is applied to transport, mostly at a reduced rate.
I am sure that many of you will be astonished to learn that Germany imposes the full rate of VAT on long-distance train tickets. (A reduced rate applies to local trains.) It means that on the six-hour 45-minute Deutsche Bahn (DB) ICE train journey between Berlin and Brussels, involving a train change in Cologne, a hefty 19 per cent VAT is payable within Germany. In this case it’s on the portion between Berlin and Aachen, the border crossing point between Germany and Belgium.
According to DB’s website, www.bahn.com, a typical oneway ICE fare (including VAT) for Berlin-Aachen is € 125 (US$171) for standard class and € 203 (US$278) for first class. While it is true that Germany has an aviation tax, the fee is levied at a flat rate of € 7.50 (US$10.28) for shortdistance flights; the VAT amount for a ticket costing € 203 (US$278) would be several times that sum. On that basis it is anything but a level playing field.
How can the German rail passenger determine how much VAT he or she is paying? Towards the bottom of the ticket will be the wording “MWSt D” along with the rate and the amount. If the ticket is international the portion of the fare liable for VAT will be shown, along with the amount.
Can you imagine the outcry in the UK if our cash-strapped government were to make domestic transport liable for VAT? There’s an annual hue and cry when UK rail fares rise by a modest 3 or 4 per cent. But 20 per cent? I’ll leave passengers’ reaction to your imagination.