Hire Car Upgrade?

[Groovee]

We've booked a basic car for our upcoming trip to Florida. My friend told me everytime they have a basic car there are never any left and they get upgraded to whatever they have left for nothing. Has this happened to anyone else. To be honest a basic car doesn't bother me it's just getting there and discovering there are none left and they want us to pay.

 

[Boo Boo Too]

If you get to the car hire place and there are no cars in your class available, they will give you something that IS available and not charge you any more money (it is like if an airline upgrades you to business class because they have no economy seats left - they don't charge you the fare difference between economy and business class: it is a free upgrade...).

Of course if the car hire company COMPLETELY runs out of cars, that is a completely different matter. Was at the Alamo at LA airport 5 or more years ago on Boxing Day and they completely ran out of cars there... people who had pre-paid cars had to wait for the cars to be returned and cleaned before they were given one - we had to wait 2 hours for a car . I THINK that is fairly rare though...

Boo

 

[Groovee]

Of course if the car hire company COMPLETELY runs out of cars, that is a completely different matter. Was at the Alamo at LA airport 5 or more years ago on Boxing Day and they completely ran out of cars there... people who had pre-paid cars had to wait for the cars to be returned and cleaned before they were given one - we had to wait 2 hours for a car . I THINK that is fairly rare though...

Boo

Thanks for that. Now the above senario is probably what will happen to us lol.

 

[wayneg]

Dont worry you will be fine in July, they have plenty of cars.
I think its a Alamo/Boxing day problem, Boxing day 2000 it happened to us, they ended up paying for us a taxi to ASMR and back again the next day when a car was available, cost them $100 in taxi fares, only day we have ever been without a car in Florida and I hated it. Totally ruined our day. I rang around avery car hire company in the phone book, every one was sold out. Just imagine how many cars are on the roads in Florida Xmas thru New Year.

 

[Neoshoegal]

This happened to us. We booked the cheapest option. We arrived at the desk and they asked if we wanted to upgrade to a small SUV. We said no, just the basic car was good enough for us, so she left it that. We got the keys, walked to the car and guess what we got: a small SUV!
Turned the basic cars were not available hence we got an upgrade. Did try to make us pay for it first though. So I'd suggest, say no if they ask you to upgrade.

 

[Boss Hogg]

We've had similar experiences with Alamo.

I think it is safe to say they are a little "sharp".
They've attempted (quite strenuously) to get us to upgrade to a "brand new special" luxury SUV from a luxury car, which we declined, only to find one sat in the lot for us to take - which we did!
Another time they got us to try and upgrade to a "better" luxury car than a "normal" luxury car, again to go out to the garage to find both models sat waiting!
One would be forgiven for thinking they are on commission.

 

[Cochise]

The first time we went they had one full size 4 door left and last year there was two families and they had just 2 full size cars again. Missed out on two upgrades by minutes....grrrrr Mind i wish there was a next time for us to just miss out again.