How to pay your tolls while visiting Florida and driving a rental car, without getting screwed is the question. There are several bad solutions. You can stay off the toll roads, certainly doable, but not always easy. Yes. I'm talking to you Orlando. You can rent a transponder from your rental car company. $4.95 a day and up, whether or not you actually travel on a toll road, and you still pay the tolls plus an administrative fee. You can skip the transponder, drive on a toll road and expect to pay the toll-by-plate charge; which by the way carries a $3.50 administrative charge per toll. The problem with toll-by-plate and rental cars is that when the State runs the plate they send the bill to the rental car company, not you. The rental car company charges their fee then they use a third party company to track you down and that company adds their fees and by the time they get to you your $1 toll can end up costing you $14. And that's for each and every toll you run.
So... What's the answer? I thought I could use the toll-by-plate to create a commercial account and allow renters access to register their rental cars and actually get the toll-by-plate rate and leaving the rental car companies out of the process. The State took care of that by changing the system to only allowing one car per toll-by-plate account.
Now what? I opened a Sunpass commercial account; purchased a bundle of mini-transponders, activated and manage them for renters. The problem is getting the transponder into drivers' hands. I'm currently using First Class mail which requires a little forethought so the renters need to order one before they actually travel to Florida, Georgia, or North Carolina; with enough time to allow for the Post Office. I'll probably offer an overnight option for the last minute shoppers. When you add up the savings using Tolltraxx you'll still be way ahead in savings.
Tolltraxx.com is where to get one.
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