Kudos to the car rental companies

[JandD Mom]

I do know that after the tragedy, National, Hertz, and a few others permitted people with a car rented before the attack to return it at any US location with no drop off charge. Good for them! It's great to see US companies pulling together with all of us.!

 

[SplshMtn99]

Yes, I can attest to that. We rented the car at Orlando Int'l Airport & was scheduled to return it there at 9am on this past Sunday. After the attacks, we called National on Friday & asked about driving the car back to Hartford, Ct (Bradley Airport) where we had flown out of & where my car was at. They said no problem - typed some stuff in the computer - honored our rate - & waived all change fees.

The return process at Hartford was smooth. They had all the info they needed.

From the looks of it, they had others that had done the same. The return aisle had plates from Illinois & Florida & other states.

THANK YOU NATIONAL!!!!!!

On a side note, we were so glad we had chosen a 2002 Pont Grand Prix GT from the aisle & not something sporty or smaller. It would have been a long uncomfortable trip otherwise. Turned out to be a very nice car for the long drive home -- 22 hours sitting in a car.

 

[zurgswife]

Splashmtn99....Good choice on cars...we on the other hand had picked a small sport coupe for our daily driving around WDW....Not the first choice I would have picked to drive 1100 miles home in if I had know I was going to have to drive.

The National has a customer for life. We had just joined the emerald club and will stay with it for all of our trips. In light of all the terror and stress that went on during the prior few days it was great to deal with such an effortless return 1100 miles from the scheduled return counter...

 

[lovepuzzles]

Unfortunately, they weren't doing the same for new customers. We had rented our car through Alamo. In my hometown there is not an Alamo, so we were forced to make a new reservation. The rental car companies were charging an outrageous amount of money for one way trips. We paid $70/day for a compact and that is the cheapest we could find. Most companies were charging drop off fees of $300 for my location, and one lady told me her drop off fee was $800. That does not include the daily rate. UNREAL!! We paid more for the rental car than we will get back from our airline tickets; not including all the extra meals, hotels, and gas. What was suppose to be a cheap trip for us turned out to be very expensive because of companies trying to make a profit from this terrible disaster. On the other hand, every hotel we stayed at was extremely sympathetic. We were upgraded to a suite twice with no additional charge.

 

[seashoreCM]

How far was the nearest Alamo rental station? Could you have driven the family home in the Alamo car, then taken the car to the nearest Alamo station, taking a bus back, or possibly with your spouse trailing you in the family car?

Does Alamo still advertise "where all the miles are free"?

I have used Alamo on several occasions and not yet had a bad experience. While there are many reports of long waits, I have had long waits at other rental companies too.

I strongly discourage using rental cars for which the mileage and drop charges are not forgiven, also I strongly discourage buying real one way tickets on other airlines.

It would be interesting to find out what happened to a soldier on leave and at Disney World who refused to rent a car with an $800. drop charge and instead returned days late to his post because of cancelled airplane flights. Would the worst thing that happened to him be placement at the top of President Bush's call up lists? By the way we need additional servicemen in small town America to guard mosques and convenience stores, saving the strain on towns' police budgets.

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[lovepuzzles]

The closest rental station was 2 1/2 hours away. After all that driving, we were just ready to be home. Alamo was going to charge us $320 for 2 days for a compact. I heard on the news yesterday that they were price gouging after the attack. We rented from Budget for the $70/day (no drop fee) and kept it 3 days. It was still cheaper than Alamo. I'm sure there were people out there who wanted to rent, but couldn't afford to. It's terrible how they were trying to make a profit out of something so terrible.

Does anyone else out there feel like they got ripped off?