While I was making plans for my return trip home from a year living in the desert, I decided I would setup reservations for a vacation trip to San Diego. I made the reservations for the rental car through Expedia.com having a certain level of satisfaction from using them in the past.
These reservations were made a full three months before hand. I had received confirmation and felt reasonably confident that there should be no problems.
Then we arrived in San Diego. We made our way to the courtesy shuttle stop and looked for the van to take us to the car rental. No van. We tried to call the rental company and was promptly hung up on. We called back to find out what was going on, this time no answer. We then calle dthe corporate office and was doing all of this while still waiting for a shuttle. We were instantly hung up on again at the corporate number. Then the shuttle shows up.
We make it to the rental office where once inside there are four other customers waiting in line. With only two clerks working it took another hour to finally get through the line. I was asked for my reservation confirmation which I produced. The clerk took my name and made a phone call while I was standing there. Once off the phone I asked if there was some problem.
He tells me he has no cars available. I asked him why not? He looks at me as if I had just asked him why the Earth spins, shrugs his shoulder and says be cause there are none available. I informed him that I ahd made these reservations several months ago and again press him for why he did not ahve a car for us. He said he was working on gettign a replacement vehicle through one of his "rental associates". He said he would personally ensure I get the the same deal I would have received had he had a car. I accepted this with some resolution and stepped off. After he had assisted another four customers in this same manner he directed all of us to get back on the shuttle bus.
He told the driver to take us to another car rental in which he promptly remained behind. The shuttle then dropped all of us off at a car rental that was beyond reproach. The car I received had a blown out poweresteering pump (which when I reutrned the car was told there was no powere steering on small cars), the AC did not work, and was dented beyond recognition. We drove it to the hotel approximately 3 miles and after checking in, drove immediately to another car rental, then returned the car back to the rental sight. Since I had no reservations the rental of the only other car through this alternate company ran me over 250.00, where had Advantage been able to produce a car as reserved would have run me only 80.00 for the time we were down.
This company definitely needs to have the FTC crawl through there business practices and taken down. Everyone should steer well clear of this fly-by-night company.
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