$93 For One Hour Parking!

That's what they tried to charge me last night at the Austin airport. Yup, $93! And with a straight face!

I went to pick up my mom late at night. 11:50 PM is what the entrance parking ticket said. The Bergstrom airport no longer has 30min free parking, and their hourly rate is $3.

They were delayed getting off the plane. By the the time we were at the parking exit ramp, it was about 12:47 PM, just under an hour. As I handed the booth clerk the ticket and my credit card I asked smiling "did we make it in time" - thinking did we make it under 1 hour. To which she replied (after getting out and checking the temporary licence plates on the back of the car): "That will be $93". Um, what?! We were there for under an hour! She changed the digital display on the ramp to read 93.00.

She then said that the car has been parked in the garage for several days, they have patrols that monitor cars, and they have in their system my car VIN number. "Well, it's not correct," I replied, "we were here just tonight."
Her response, "it is correct! We have it here in the system."
I told her I do believe her that she has something in the system, but that it is not correct. I just came tonight. She asked if the car was at the airport at any point that week, and I said no.

She then said that she needs to call her supervisor, to which I replied "You better call him" She didn't like that response, and said "I better?! The only think I better do is charge you $93." Where does she get that attitude?!

When she got off the phone, she checked the plates again, didn't say anything, just changed the display to 6.00, and handed me back my credit card. I asked how much was it, and she said $6. I asked why not $3, but she said it rolled over and hour (while she was trying to sort their wrong information in the system!). It rolled over by 3 minutes. But I was there in under an hour, to which she replied: "Yeah, well that's your defeat!" What's her problem? What did we do to offend her and provoke that kind of attitude? No, "I am sorry for that issue, we messed up,..." No, no, none of that. She just added "Well, there is a number on there if you want to complain." I sure will, I said, and left the place.

I was so tired at that point, and had enough stress in my life to add another drama to it. $3 is not worth it. (a certain Frasier episode came to mind when he didn't want to pay for parking he didn't owe...)

What a disrespectful person!

The moral of the story: Do not give the parking booth clerk your credit card until you know how much they want you to pay.