On March 3, I reserved a compact car from Dollar Rent a Car for pickup at Sacramento Metro Airport, using orbitz.com. The reservation was for $139.34, including taxes and fees. I chose Dollar because their rate was far better than any other, and I was working under an extremely tight budget. I expected to pay for the rental on my credit card, which had $245 available in credit due to an ongoing financial problem at home. I know that rental car agencies place a hold on credit cards, but in my experience it has always been for the amount of the rental. Dollar's rental rate was the only one that met my tight credit line.
When I arrived to pick up the car, I was stunned when the clerk told me that they wanted a $250 hold on rhe card - $5.00 more than I had available. The hold was declined. I asked if they would accept my Charter One banking card. Which operates as either a debit or credit card and is tied into my checking account (which did have ample funds for the hold.) The clerk refused to honor it, and started getting rude with me. Her suggestion was that I ask someone to meet me there and pay for the rental for me. Never mind I had no one within over 100 miles who could do so, and that this one person would not be available for several hours.
I ended up asking every other agency in the rental center for help, until the good people at National Car Rental came to the rescue. Their service was excellent, and they were glad to use the bank card. But I ended up paying $308.99 for the rental because Dollar neither disclosed their credit card hold policy nor showed the slightest flexibility in helping a customer do business with them.
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