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Take my van — please!

October 4, 2006

Q: I recently rented a car at the Seattle airport from Advantage Rent-A-Car. When I arrived at the counter, an agent told me they were out of cars before I could even give her my reservation number.

It turns out that a lot of customers had decided to keep their vehicles longer because it was a holiday weekend. But Advantage didn’t want me to leave empty-handed. It offered me a 15-passenger van at the same rate.

Unfortunately, with high gas prices and a long drive ahead of me, a van wasn’t going to work. I asked if there were any cars at another Advantage location near the airport that I might have instead . “Advantage doesn’t do that,” she snapped.

The agent told me I could check with other car rental companies at the airport. But each car rental counter had a long line of people waiting to be served. I asked her if she could check for me and her response was to turn to someone at the Budget counter next to her and say, “Hey, you guys got any cars?” They didn’t.

I ended up having to take the train to visit my family in Oregon. I’d like Advantage to reimburse me for my expenses. Can you help me?

– Kristen Dietz, Seattle

A: Advantage should have offered you a car — not a van.

Here is the standard industry practice: When a rental company runs out of vehicles (say, on a busy holiday weekend) then it should give you the next class of vehicle available at no extra charge. Not the next type of vehicle. If it doesn’t have any cars, it should offer to pay for one at another rental company.

You also didn’t get the level of customer service that you should have gotten from Advantage. I’m not sure the agent you dealt with was actually dismissive of your situation. Yes, she could have been more polite. But in reviewing your case with Advantage, and knowing what I know about holiday travel, I think she was probably just stressed out.

Your request for a car was reasonable. However, your request for a train ticket wasn’t. The Advantage rental contract makes no mention of paying for transportation under these circumstances. When Advantage didn’t offer you a car, you should have phoned the reservations number. Phone agents with major car rental companies can often provide you with a solution that its local representatives haven’t thought of. That might have included renting a car from a different Advantage location or from another company.

Here’s another tip: If you know you’re going to rent a car over a busy holiday weekend, pick up the car early. If you’re renting on a Friday, plan to arrive in the morning. Or better yet, take the car out on Thursday. You’re practically guaranteed to get the vehicle you requested.

I checked with Advantage, and initially its position was that it had lived up to the spirit of its reservation by offering you transportation (in your case, a 15-passenger van, which would have been driven by one person). “If we would not have had any vehicles, we would have looked at this differently,” said Advantage spokesman Monte Ramey.

But after some additional back-and-forth between you, Advantage and me, the company offered you either a free weekend rental or a $100 refund to make up for the trouble.

Christopher Elliott is the author of Scammed: How to Save Your Money and Find Better Service in a World of Schemes, Swindles, and Shady Deals. Critics have called it “eye-opening” and “inspiring” — it’ll “grab your attention and won’t let go.” Order your copy now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble or iTunes.

5 comments

  • Chris in Alaska

    As a former rental agency employee, I agree that forcing a 15-passenger van on someone is not an acceptable practice (I remember once when I was in a similar situation). Upgrading to an SUV or a minivan is acceptable (although I did have one gentleman insist a minivan was not a free upgrade from a fullsize), but a 15-passenger van is in a different league.

    Advantage had the responsibility to attempt to make alternate arrangements. Many times when we were sold out, we would spend a significant amount of time attempting to locate available vehicles at other rental companies. Depending on the conditions, some agencies were willing to match or even beat the reserved rate; in the cases that they were not able to, we would pay the difference between the customer’s reserved rate and what the customer actually paid at the other company. (This also happened in reverse all the time: we’d help other agencies out. Because we were all stuck together in the basement of the airport, most of us became friends and were more than happy to help each other out.) There were many times that we came close to literally not being able to find a single available car in the entire city, but we never, ever had to flatly deny a reservation to a customer. Had that happened, we would have been willing to pay for alternate methods of transportation (taxi, train, air, etc.)–but only after we were sure (and had completed the legwork ourselves) that no other arrangements were possible. It appears that Advantage fell short of even barely acceptable customer service.

    Normally, I would say that Advantage would only have been responsible for a train fare had Advantage ensured that no other cars were available and had exhausted other options, including calling nearby offices, both Advantage and other agencies (and arranging to pick up any difference). But because they didn’t even attempt to assist the customer, I’m tempted to say that they should automatically cover the train fare (and I’m assuming here that the train fare was more than the original rental would have been) without argument.

    One thing to note is that, as a franchise (which I assume they are), that Advantage office would not have had the authority to force another Advantage location to accept the original reservation. I assume that is what the agent was referring to, although it sounds as if she wasn’t particularly adept at wording it in a pleasant manner. Presumably the nationwide reservations center or customer service office could have assisted with these arrangements; however, I’ve discovered that (at least in my company) sometimes the people who can authorize that aren’t in during non-business hours. At the least, though, that office should have called nearby offices to see if they had cars available and could either honor the rate or bill the difference to the SeaTac office.

    Also, I’m a little unclear about the refunds or what she claims she was owed. When she reserved (not “rented,” as she said–that mistake in terminology is one of my pet peeves) the car, did she prepay the rental or simply place a reservation?

    If she prepaid, then Advantage should have refunded her what she prepaid when they admitted they could not honor the reservation. If the train fare was greater than the reserved rate, they should have refunded her in the amount of the train ticket.

    If she simply made a reservation with no financial commitments, Advantage should only have had to cough up enough cash to cover the difference between the reserved rate and the train fare. Under no circumstances would they be responsible for paying for her entire train ticket as well as not charging her for the rental.

    What did the $100 refund represent–the former or the latter?

  • joshua katt

    a huge 15 passenger van is not the same as a car and downright dangerous to drive if you aren’t used to it.

  • Jesse

    I would not be able to legally drive a 15 passenger van in the state of California. Those vehicles require a different type of license (Class B) from what usually people have (Class C). State of California, I am unsure if this is the same with every state.

  • JOE MATRADOTZ

    15 pass requires a class c license no tcp anyone with a cdl can drive them.

  • Kathleen

    Not 100% positive here, but I believe those “15 passenger vans” are offered more often than we think..why? Because we are offered an alternative to the car which we reserved…when we turn it down, the rental agency hopes they are “off the hook” Case in point: I travel to Dallas/Ft.Worth on business frequently. On one occasion, Avis ran out of rental cars, offering me a 15-passenger van. I’m petite, and inexperienced driving something that large. I refused to accept the van, and Avis refused to budge or offer an alternative…they indicated that the Van WAS the alternative and if I turned it down, that was my perogative. A business associate drove an hour -plus to pick me up at the airport – whereupon we turned around and drove the hour back to our offices.

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