On the morning Marianne Piepenburg was supposed to pick up her car from National at the Avignon TGV station, arsonists attacked the French rail lines. Her car rental company canceled her reservation after she missed her pickup time, and then charged her an extra $403 for a new vehicle.
Piepenburg doesn’t think that’s fair.
“I feel that National took advantage of my situation, which was beyond my control,” she says.
Wait. Can car rental companies just cancel your reservation if you’re late and then raise your price?
Yes—and no.
This case raises several important questions:
- What are your rights when an “act of God” or civil unrest prevents you from picking up a rental?
- Why do major car rental brands hide behind local affiliates when things go wrong?
- How can you effectively document a paper trail with a nonresponsive company?
First, let’s take a closer look at what went wrong.
“It was impossible for me to take delivery of my auto”
Piepenburg, an Emerald Club member, deliberately chose the company for her rental in France because she thought her loyalty would count if something went wrong. Her rate for a five-day rental: $434.
But on the morning of October 27 there were arson attacks on the French rail lines, including those between Paris and Avignon.
“It was impossible for me to take delivery of my auto,” she explains. “I tried calling the National Rental office in Avignon and there was no answer. I tried modifying my reservation on the app and could not do so.”
She arrived in Avignon the next day, but by then, National had canceled her reservation.
“I was told that Enterprise—National’s parent company—would have an auto available later that day,” she recalls. “I returned to the train station and took delivery of a comparable vehicle on October 28 for four days.”
Enterprise charged her $837.
“That’s nearly twice the original reservation cost for less days,” she says.
After she returned, she called Enterprise’s customer service. The representatives told her she had to send a request to the local Enterprise affiliate asking that they compensate her for the difference in the charges “They assured me that I would hear from Enterprise,” she says.
“I have heard nothing more from anyone,” she adds.
Piepenburg says she’s disappointed. She gave Enterprise and National her business and expected them to quickly take care of this rather than deferring to a local operator.
“When I walked into the office at the Avignon station, the sign said ‘Enterprise,’ ‘National’ and ‘Budget,’ and I had every reason to believe I was doing business with them, not with a local, independent affiliate that would treat their customers unfairly,” she adds.
She spent the next several months caught in a game of corporate hot potato. National’s customer service blamed Enterprise. Enterprise blamed the local affiliate in France. And she didn’t hear as much as a peep from the local affiliate in Avignon, which apparently didn’t own a working telephone or an outgoing email server.
Could this have gone any differently? Maybe.
What are your rights when an “act of God” or civil unrest prevents you from picking up a rental?
In the travel world, we often talk about “force majeure”—events so severe and unpredictable that they void standard contracts. Usually, companies use this to protect themselves from you. If a storm blows the roof off a rental office, they don’t owe you a car. But when an event like a rail arson attack keeps you from the counter, the “protection” doesn’t always work in reverse.
Most car rental companies have a “no-show” policy. If you aren’t there within a certain window—often two to 24 hours—they cancel the reservation and release the car to the next person in line.
They don’t care that the trains were on fire. They just see an empty slot and a chance to re-rent the vehicle at walk-up rates, which are significantly higher than what you booked months earlier.
Piepenburg’s experience is a classic example. Because she couldn’t reach the office to tell them she was delayed, she was treated like a new customer when she showed up a day late to claim her rental car.
To protect yourself, you have to be relentless. If the local office doesn’t answer, call the international customer service line immediately. Get a representative to add a note to your file. Even if they say they can’t modify the reservation, that note serves as your get-out-of-jail-free card later when you’re fighting a bill.
In Piepenburg’s case, she tried the app and the local phone line, but the system wasn’t built to listen.
When you’re stuck in a situation like this, don’t just wait until you arrive to fix it. If the app fails, send a DM to the company on X or Facebook. These social media teams often have more power to override local no-show cancellations than a local affiliate.
Why do major car rental brands hide behind local affiliates when things go wrong?
This is one of the most frustrating shell games in the travel industry. You see a big, familiar logo like National or Enterprise at an airport in France and you think you’re dealing with a global giant. But you aren’t. You’re often dealing with a local franchise that has paid for the right to use that logo.
When Piepenburg complained to the U.S. corporate offices, she was met with a shrug. They told her the Avignon location was an “independent affiliate” and that any refund had to come from its pockets. This is a convenient way for corporations to collect franchise fees while washing their hands of customer service failures. The company wants you to see the brand when you’re booking, but they want you to see a local stranger when you’re complaining.
You have to remind the corporate office that their name is on the building. Piepenburg was an Emerald Club member. That’s a corporate loyalty program. If the brand is strong enough to take her loyalty and her data, it’s strong enough to fix a billing error caused by a national rail crisis.
When you hit the affiliate wall, stop talking to the local office. They have no incentive to give your money back. Instead, escalate to the corporate executives who oversee global operations. They care about the brand’s reputation in a way the local guy in Avignon might not.
How can you effectively document a one-way paper trail with a nonresponsive company?
Piepenburg’s biggest hurdle was that the company simply stopped talking. She sent emails. She made calls. She even used a chatbot, which gave her a seven-day window that came and went with total silence.
I’ve seen this before. It’s as if companies hope that if they ignore you long enough, you’ll just go away.
To break the silence, you need a paper trail that is impossible to ignore. Piepenburg did the right thing by moving from phone calls to written communication. However, she initially skipped a step by going straight to the top executives. I usually recommend the rule of three:
- The customer service form: Use the website’s “Contact Us” form first. It creates a case number in their system.
- The social media chat: If the form is ignored, use the chat feature or social media. Take screenshots. Piepenburg’s photo of the chat was vital evidence.
- The executive escalation: Only after the first two fail should you reach out to the VPs.
Piepenburg felt her trail was one-way, but that one-way street was exactly what I needed to help her. Because she had documented the dates, the names of the people she spoke with, and the lack of response, I could present a case file to Enterprise that showed a breakdown in its service recovery process.
When a company says it will get back to you in a week, set a calendar alert for day eight. Don’t let a month pass. Continuous, polite follow-ups show the company that you aren’t going to be part of its “unresolved” statistics.
A resolution to the French rental fiasco?
So, how did this French fiasco finish? After Piepenburg shared her meticulously documented paper trail with me, I reached out to my contacts at Enterprise.
Within days, the company decided to honor the original rate.
Piepenburg received a message from a representative apologizing for the “delay and for the poor experience.” She didn’t have to wait 10 days, either. A refund of $399 was credited to her account almost immediately.
“We take customer concerns seriously and work to resolve any experience that falls short,” an Enterprise representative told me.
Enterprise says there’s no record of you contacting the branch, which is not surprising since most of your interactions were by phone.
“Our team reviewed the matter, decided to honor the original rate, and refunded the difference,” the Enterprise representative added.
Piepenburg is pleased with the outcome.
“Despite all my efforts to reach out to Enterprise and its representatives, it is clear to me that I would have been ignored without your intervention,” she says. “While your involvement should not have been necessary, I am deeply grateful for your advocacy.”
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