Yesterday, I tried to make a reservation through continental.com for an Alamo rental car in Frankfurt, Germany. I priced an intermediate, with the only special equipment being satellite navigation system, and was quoted $29.79 a week. I figured it was a mis-quote, but went through to make the reservation anyway. I was quoted the same rate twice more, and got as far as the "confirm reservation" page. When I confirmed my reservation, my confirmation came back with a rate of $245.75 EUR a week. At no point during the reservation was I quoted this.
I made screenshots of all the pages I hit, and have sent these to Alamo for resolution, but they refuse to do anything about the reservation other that tell me that the rate is $245.75 EUR, not the $29.79 I was quoted. One agent even refused to provide me with an email address to customer relations and tried to deny me the ability to speak with her supervisor. :mad:
As I get more info on the resolution, I will post here.
formeraa
Feb 3, 05, 10:21 am
Yesterday, I tried to make a reservation through continental.com for an Alamo rental car in Frankfurt, Germany. I priced an intermediate, with the only special equipment being satellite navigation system, and was quoted $29.79 a week. I figured it was a mis-quote, but went through to make the reservation anyway. I was quoted the same rate twice more, and got as far as the "confirm reservation" page. When I confirmed my reservation, my confirmation came back with a rate of $245.75 EUR a week. At no point during the reservation was I quoted this.
I made screenshots of all the pages I hit, and have sent these to Alamo for resolution, but they refuse to do anything about the reservation other that tell me that the rate is $245.75 EUR, not the $29.79 I was quoted. One agent even refused to provide me with an email address to customer relations and tried to deny me the ability to speak with her supervisor. :mad:
As I get more info on the resolution, I will post here.
When you know a price quoted is unreasonably low (as this was), you know that you are taking your chances. All businesses have a reasonable right to fix mis-stated prices. Go to your local grocery store and look for the "correction" notices for their ads.
If you get them to honor the rate, GREAT! If not, find the best "real" rate. But don't get mad about something that was obviously an error.
WebTraveler
Feb 6, 05, 10:06 pm
Yesterday, I tried to make a reservation through continental.com for an Alamo rental car in Frankfurt, Germany. I priced an intermediate, with the only special equipment being satellite navigation system, and was quoted $29.79 a week. I figured it was a mis-quote, but went through to make the reservation anyway. I was quoted the same rate twice more, and got as far as the "confirm reservation" page. When I confirmed my reservation, my confirmation came back with a rate of $245.75 EUR a week. At no point during the reservation was I quoted this.
I made screenshots of all the pages I hit, and have sent these to Alamo for resolution, but they refuse to do anything about the reservation other that tell me that the rate is $245.75 EUR, not the $29.79 I was quoted. One agent even refused to provide me with an email address to customer relations and tried to deny me the ability to speak with her supervisor. :mad:
As I get more info on the resolution, I will post here.
I think the greed in you is taking over. Yea right, $29.79 for the week. I wouldn't honor it either. You knew it was wrong when you did it. This is beyond reason. No sympathy here.
Zip
Feb 10, 05, 3:01 pm
I think the greed in you is taking over. Yea right, $29.79 for the week. I wouldn't honor it either. You knew it was wrong when you did it. This is beyond reason. No sympathy here.
Problem with this statement is that you are allowing to charge any price, and the customer be committed to it. Customer did have screenshots with the low price. If you've been following Alamo's "this rate or less" promotion, you know there ARE some incredable specials out there. Alamo should somewhat compromise on this. That being said, under $300/week (total charges) isn't that bad in Europe!
WebTraveler
Feb 10, 05, 8:04 pm
Problem with this statement is that you are allowing to charge any price, and the customer be committed to it. Customer did have screenshots with the low price. If you've been following Alamo's "this rate or less" promotion, you know there ARE some incredable specials out there. Alamo should somewhat compromise on this. That being said, under $300/week (total charges) isn't that bad in Europe!
You are missing the point of his post - when he "confirmed" the reservation the real rate came up - not the $29 rate. So the system corrected itself. This is NOT a situation of having a confirmed quote in hand and being denied at the counter. This is not the same issue.
Frankly, this does happen a lot with reservation systems. How many times have you purchased something via Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia that comes up with a message that the rate quoted is no longer available? Happens a lot really. $29 is way too good to be true and this guy should have known it.
Brendan
Feb 22, 05, 1:53 pm
You are missing the point of his post - when he "confirmed" the reservation the real rate came up - not the $29 rate. So the system corrected itself. This is NOT a situation of having a confirmed quote in hand and being denied at the counter. This is not the same issue.
Frankly, this does happen a lot with reservation systems. How many times have you purchased something via Orbitz, Travelocity, and Expedia that comes up with a message that the rate quoted is no longer available? Happens a lot really. $29 is way too good to be true and this guy should have known it.
Right on, WT! The Website corrected itself immediately. The OP would have a valid complaint only if the rate were non-refundable/non-changeable & if he were charged the higher rate without consent.
However, Alamo CS does have a duty to fix the error & should give the OP some bonus for calling it to their attention.
Tenerife
May 25, 05, 7:00 pm
I have just reserved a rental car from LAX to SAN from October 13 - 20. Entered the Costco codes ID 675899 and BY. Couldn't believe it when the final price came up with $65.73. Have the confirmation print-out - with reservation number - to take with me. (Somewhere along the way, the Product Code changed from BY to AD02). Has anyone else had this happen and do you think they will honor the price? Thanks for your advice!
Sharon
bocastephen
May 26, 05, 10:16 am
just got a deal in seattle over the holiday weekend...full size, $75+tax for 4 days...not bad with that costco discount. Rate code was BQE
thanks for the rate code tips!
Marathon Man
May 26, 05, 4:27 pm
I think what the OP is mad about is that they got him to look further and get far into the booking process and then they revealed a rate hoping he would just buy anyway. So the lure was evil. It would make me mad too and I think there shoudl be a limit on this sort of thing. I mean, surely someone out there books it when in a real hurry--maybe by telling someone on their way out the door something like this: "Hey, I saw a deal online and the link is on the screen, but I am late for that meeting. Please book that cheap Alamo thing for me no matter what, I gotta run but take care of it, ok?" I mean, imagine that? It could happen ONCE and ONCE is enough to make it pretty bad in my miond. Ok, maybe you can or cannot prove the site was just making an error but I bet the company knows what it is doing here. They are banking on people's ability to make a mistake once and a while and that's down right evil if they are doing that. People should be watchful and keep records, but still...
Would you do it to your customers if given the chance?