I needed a rental car. So I followed the second rule for avoiding travel rip-offs (my first is “Never change money at a UK airport”) and concerns car rental in the US: “Never upgrade a hire vehicle in the US.” For any non-American going west, there is no point in accepting the offer of a bigger vehicle.
First, a “sub-compact” or “economy” car in US terms is a respectable size. Next, if you swallow the salesperson’s assessment of your pre-booked vehicle as being unsuitable for the journey you plan (“You’re not thinking of all sharing that car, are you?”), the costs swiftly increase; the upgrade fee is uprated by a range of additional charges. Third, experience suggests you stand a good chance of a bigger car than you ordered anyway.
On about half the occasions I hire in the US, there is not a single “economy” or “sub-compact” car in the rental lot, and I get a vehicle built like a Sherman tank without paying a penny more.
Accordingly, I always book the smallest possible vehicle, in advance, direct with the local division of one of the big multinational firms, or through a broker such as Holiday Autos – the company I chose for this trip. It cost just £1 (R12.44) per hour for the 48 hours from pick-up to drop-off at the San Diego airport depot.
The price included “Total Damage Excess Waiver”, which sounds as mighty as a Sherman tank. Thus, I could cheerfully turn down the miscellany of expensive insurance add-ons at the rental desk.
The other big revenue stream for car hire firms and their staff involves persuading you to choose a bigger vehicle. So when the friendly car hire man offered a “Thanksgiving Weekend upgrade special” (some time after the public holiday), I declined.
The agent feigned the open-mouthed astonishment normally seen on the face of a starlet who has just picked up an Oscar. “No one else has turned it down,” he said.
After a flight of nearly 12 hours, I re-declined and began to initial the rental contract in the places he indicated. Then I took the wheel of a Nissan Versa (better, I guess, than a Nissan Vice). The vehicle seemed quite roomy, but then every visitor to the US must recalibrate assumptions about small/medium/large.
When my credit card statement arrived, I was as amazed as a Hollywood starlet to see that the cost of the hire had also been recalibrated: £26 (about R312) had been added for an upgrade. Holiday Autos’ customer services proved both courteous and efficient. Within a couple of days, my contact, Sebastian, had procured from the car hire firm in California a copy of the contract.
It showed that I had agreed to pay for a better car. Those are my initials, in the box beside the squiggle the agent marked.
“We cannot proceed with the refund on this occasion,” concluded the company. I have to agree. I had inadvertently accepted an upgrade I neither wanted nor needed.
“Our advice,” a spokeswoman for Holiday Autos told me, “is always to carefully read through all the terms and conditions of the contractual agreement before signing.” Had I done so, I would have spotted, and contested, the line reading: “I acknowledge and accept car class change.”
Are such disputes common? Apparently not. “We’re not aware of similar complaints being made.”
Evidently my case was an isolated misunderstanding. But I wonder if other travellers have experienced anything similar.
Imagine the following sequence of events: agent asks customer if they want an upgrade or extra insurance; customer declines; agent keys in the code for an upgrade anyway then prints out contract for customer to sign, circling places to initial; customer, in the mistaken belief that they have declined everything, initials without reading the details.
Such a scenario promises the prospect of extra commission with no downside: even if customer spots the unwanted upgrade, the agent can explain it away as a mistake and correct it.
Next time, I will study every line of the car-rental contract, and you may wish to do the same. – The Independent