Help with Alamo Car Rental at MCO...minimum car size?

[wcduke]

Hi, I recall reading on these boards in the past that if you rent an Alamo car at MCO, you only need to rent a certain size/class car at a minimum because that aisle contains multiple sizes/classes and you are free to pick what you want from that aisle, regardless of your reserved size.

Can someone explain to me how that works again? Like I said above, I read about it on here in the past but I never paid much attention to it, because it never applied to me. I've always rented mini-vans from Alamo in the past, not cars. I've tried searching for it, but had no luck. So my apologies for that.

Can someone help! Thank you!

 

[Minnesota!]

Bumping as I am curious, too...

 

[keishashadow]

perhaps you are thinking of if you rent a standard you are upgraded to full size since alamo have no standard class @ MCO

others have reported good luck finding other than mid-size cars on that that aisle (which you would need to book).

 

[nacho113]

You may also be thinking of National. Join their Emerald Club (free) then book a midsize and pick anything from the Emerald Aisle which is going to have mid-size or larger vehicles. Sometimes you will see mid-size (Toyota Corolla or similar) but more often than not you will find Standard and Full-size cars and occasionally SUV's and Minivans. Nothing is guaranteed other than the Mid-size that you have booked but we always ended up with Full-size or larger.
National has become more expensive over the past few years and personally we have starting renting from Alamo almost exclusively lately (it's a sister company to National, Enterprise being the parent company)
Alamo has something similar, in that you book a size class, then get to pick a vehicle from that size/aisle. From what we have seen with Alamo; Economy, Compact and Mid-size are just that (if you rent a compact the aisle is generally filled with Compact cars).
With Alamo, the aisle that seems to be where you can get just about anything is the Full-size aisle. We have seen FS, Premium, SUV's, CUV's and occasionally Mini-Vans.
And YES, MCO does not have a Standard aisle so if you book a Standard, you will automatically pick from the FS aisle (which can have Standard vehicles as well as the others mentioned above)

All that being said, if you absolutely have to have a certain type of vehicle because of your needs (kids, old or imfirmed persons etc) where a larger more spacious vehicle is required like a Minivan, CUV or SUV, then you should definitely book what you need.
On the other hand, if a Full-size will work for you (and finding a nice SUV or Minivan on the FS Aisle will be a great bonus) then book the FS vehicle, or in the case of MCO, book the Standard vehicle if it saves you a couple of dollars since you will pick from the FS aisle when you arrive anyway.

 

[bumbershoot]

perhaps you are thinking of if you rent a standard you are upgraded to full size since alamo have no standard class @ MCO

Seconded.

 

[wcduke]

Thank you everyone. Yes, Keishashadow and Nacho, I think I was recalling a mixture of both of your responses regarding Alamo AND National. Thank you. This is good info for me.