So I have a bone to pick. Each time I come back from a trip and park at the Portland Airport, I get frustrated. Here is my recent dilemma:

I parked on Saturday, March 15 at 9:15 am and returned to pick up my car on March 17, at 11:46 am. This would be a total of 26.5 hours. I was charged $30, or $10 a day. Standard Parking (the vendor for parking for the Economy Lot at the Portland Airport) states on their website that it is $10 a day. However as you leave the lot there is a sign that states rates by the hour, yet their website does not state their hourly rate. Other websites show that the Economy Lot (where we park) is $3 an hour. If I was there 2 days + an extra 2 hours then my fee for parking should be $26 not $30. Now let me tell you I am not complaining about $4, I am wanting to paint a picture of what $4 adds up to if you think of all the spaces in just the Economy Lot.

If there are 7900 parking spaces in the Economy lot, and they each stayed the exact amount of time I stayed, that would be an extra $4 they are charging for each car. 7900 times $4 equals $31,600 a day. That is a TON of money. My gut says that the parking company is hoping that folks are not thinking about the small overage they are charging to each customer. Over time $31,600 a day, equals $211,200 a week or an extra $11,502,400 in profits for a parking lot company. Now that is a gross generalization because not all spots are going to rollover like that, and not all of them are going to be under their daily amount. However it does feel like they are stealing from each of us.

The last time we had a stay and this same situation happened, we sent an email to Standard Parking and got an unhelpful response. What frustrates me further is there is no signage that says that after x # of hours, you will be charged for the full day rate. What is this world coming to if companies can sift, bleed, and steal from customers? It just feels wrong to me.

I am curious what you think.