Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Is This Alamo Las Vegas Or Hell?

My goodness. I just had the worst car rental experience of my life this past Sunday at Alamo - Las Vegas! I was on a 5-hour trip (arrived at 11 am, left at 5 pm), and reserved an Alamo rental car for the short trip.

It took about an hour and a half for me to get out of the Alamo lot, using my Quicksilver membership. First, the shuttle picked me up at the curb at 11:15 am, and all seemed well, except for a bit of traffic. Then the driver announced that he was going to have to go back to the other terminal before dropping us off at the Alamo site, because he had not heard a couple on the shuttle who told him they needed to get off. So, he circled and dropped them off. Then we went through traffic a second time before heading off to the Alamo lot.

When we got to the Alamo lot, I went to the Quicksilver line. And it was quite a line. There were 12 people ahead of me, and one (very slow) person giving out Quicksilver rental cars.

I finally got my car assigned at 12 pm, and was told to go outside and pick any car under the economy sign. There were no cars under the economy sign. Instead, I was told to stand on another line, about 20 people long, who were waiting for cars to be driven up and assigned to them. I finally got my car at 12:30 p.m.

I went to leave the facility, and there was a traffic snarl, with only two booths open, to leave the facility. The guard at my booth walked away two cars ahead of me and was away for about 8 minutes. By the time I finally made it out of the Alamo lot, it was 12:50 pm, and I now had only about 3 hours before I had to return the car in order to get onto my flight to leave.

What a horrible experience! I think I will avoid Alamo Las Vegas in the future.

I would complain (write a letter, request reimbursement, etc) if something like this happened to me. Sounds like your time got cut into quite a bit. At least they should give you some $ off your rental.

I take it the Alamo lot was isolated from the competition and not a central facility (forgive me; I'm not a Las Vegas person), and you were a prisioner at that point? Was sitting like a dummard in a long slow Alamo line not too long ago and a person well behind me taught me a lesson. He took out his booking information and started down the line till he found a taker for a price match and was rolling off in an Avis about the time I got to the counter. Have spent last three years primarily booking Alamo but they have worn out the goodwill and any close price goes elsewhere (except maybe Budget, which is getting even worse FT reviews these days).

Yeah, once they get you on the bus and drop you off at their Las Vegas facility, it's a bit like "devil's island." Isolated lot, nothing really close.