Worst Rental Car Company Essay, Research Paper

Why Alamo is the Worst Rental Car Company

Over Thanksgiving my husband and I had the worst experience renting a car. The laundry list of complaints began long before we ever rented the car. In the end all I wanted was my money back. I just had to figure out how to get it back.

First of all we booked the reservation for the car over the internet. A few days prior to our reservation, we come to find out that we have to pay with an American Express card. This posed a problem since neither of us had this type of credit card. So, we changed the reservation to a corporate reservation under my husbands company, which caused for an increase in price. This dilemma was nothing compared to what we would encounter from midnight to 2:00 a.m. at the actual rental counter.

Initially, my husband wanted to pay with cash. That particular location would not take cash. We then attempted to use his Discover card. It wouldn’t work because Discover was updating their records.

Also, our reservation was made under my husbands corporate account which requires a business card to be presented at the time of rental. At first they would not accept his business car because it was bade of paper, and according to Alamo it was too easy to make. We didn’t have a plastic business card that they required. We were never informed of the rules on what type of business card needed to be presented.

Then we tried to pay with my credit card. We were unsuccessful because the car has to be in the person’s name that is paying for it. We then attempted to put the car in my name, if we did this we not only would lose the corporate discount but we would also be charged an extra $25.00 per day because I wasn’t 25 years old.

At this point we had a few options. We could go to another location and pay cash for the car and lose the corporate discount. We could put the car under my name and end up paying $300.00 more for the car. We could keep waiting until his Discover Card worked.

In the end they supposedly ran his Discover card again, and rushed us out the door. Upon returning from our Thanksgiving vacation, I was gathering receipts. After careful inspection of the receipt for the car I noticed that Alamo had charged us an extra $167.00 for extra insurance that we didn’t ever authorize. I called the service center and after explaining the situation to five different customer services reps., I finally got the charge reversed.

After hanging up the phone I looked even more closely at the rental agreement. Alamo had charged my card. The rental agreement was never signed nor was my credit card receipt. At this point I am working with my bank to get the entire charge reversed. I have never had a worse experience renting a car.