I refer to the thousands of travelers currently stranded at various airports on the East Coast. This just in from CNN online:
Zarmeen Hussain and her family knew their flight home to New Jersey -- scheduled for Monday evening -- might get canceled. But what they didn't expect was a delay of four days.
"We were very confused and like, oh my God," Hussain said from an Atlanta hotel Tuesday morning. She, her husband and daughter were in Georgia for a college reunion and were told the earliest available flight will be on Friday.
"We were thinking of the option of driving down, but the car rental company gave us a quote of $2,000," Hussain said, laughing …” Since she was laughing, I assume she and her husband decided not to rent the car.
In the comments that followed this report was one that said the car rental company “should be boycotted and fined for price gouging. Typical American greedy bastards.”
I don’t think so. To repeat what I have been teaching and preaching for many years:
1. Do not buy anything (including air tickets for an unnecessary trip) until you first have thousand of dollars saved up for emergencies.
2. Then, when you do travel, carry extra cash as well as a credit card or debit card good for at least a few thousand dollars.
Thus, when a travel emergency arises, as it did with this big storm, be willing to pay whatever it takes. And in the case of a car rental company that wants $2000 for a short rental, that’s good news! It means
the few cars left will be held for we savvy travelers who prepared beforehand for just such an emergency.
Labels: $2000 car rental, emergency cash, travel emergency
Privacy blog post by JJ Luna at 8:44 AM
