KAREN

I recently used Thrifty car rental to reserve a car at Manchester airport, I booked the car 4 months prior to arrival and even called back with flight info. When we arrived at the airport to pick-up the car, they told me that the car I reserved was not going to be back for another 8 hrs. Now to me a reservation is to guarantee a car. They told me that they can guarantee the price quoted, but cannot guarantee a car upon arrival? What the hell?
We had reserved a convertable and got stuck with a crappy compact car. Can anyone shed any light on this? It still makes me angry thinking about it!

traveller

Could you shed some light on what day your reservation was for? If it was 9/11 or thereabouts, there would be some reasonable explanation. Otherwise, I would write to the company explaining the deficiencies of this particular franchise (I believe they are all franchises). Good luck.

KAREN

The date of our travel was mid August.

traveller

Since your travel was mid August, I would think that there was no excuse for this. I would certainly try to get in touch with Thrifty's consumer complaints and politely ask for a reason for this.

I recently had trouble with a big name motel in Calgary and when I explained to the front desk person that there were a number of problems with my room, she was quite rude. I went so far as to phone the manager and have since received a complimentary suite for my next visit to Calgary.

Most companies, particularily those in the travel industry at this particular point in time, do not want bad publicity and are willing to go the extra mile.

Good luck and let us know how it goes.

Bill

I've had this kind of thing happen several times. I think the smaller the airport the more often this happens because of smaller inventory to work with. One of the main problems is that if the previous renter decides nor to bring back the car when expected, there's nothing the agency can do. You might remember an old Seinfeld episode on this exact situation. His classic line was: "the problem is, you people know how to TAKE a reservation, you just don't know how to KEEP a reservation!"

paul

I have reserved compact cars and gotten bigger ones because there were no compacts when I arrived but not the other way around. It's even more annoying when some agencies then actually try to charge you for the more expensive car that you didn't reserve. They always back down on that when you complain (loudly). In your case, I am sure that they do not stock very many convertibles and if someone doesn't return one on time or if they just screw up, you are out of luck. I do recommend that you complain to Thrifty about the situation and see if they can make amends to you in some way.