Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Europcar disaster- any contacts?

Europcar did a real number on our France trip. We'd arranged to pick up a car in Chambery on July 18th (Saturday); we've got lots of documentation from Europcar saying that their station in Chambery at the train station was open until Noon, closed until 2pm, then open again until 6pm (the usual for France).

We arrived on the train, with our two bikes and luggage (lots of stuff; when you're following the Tour de France and bringing bikes, you can't travel light!) and walk to the agency where we find a hand-written sign on their door announcing that they are no longer open Saturdays. You can see the sign here- (http://www.chainreaction.com/europcar_no_sat_note.jpg)

Nobody to talk to, no way to get all our gear to a station several miles away that may or may not have our car, and running out of time. So we get on another train to take us to Albertville (our destination) and a cab to our hotel.

I contact Europcar via email and don't get a response for a couple days; meantime I do some research and find they have a station in Grenoble that's open Sundays, so my son and I ride to Grenoble to pick up a car there. Unfortunately they have no suitable-sized cars available for our two bikes and luggage, which will cause issues down the road, but we take what we can get for now.

Europcar eventually gets back to us and says we should talk with the local station in Albertville but they have no cars. We come across some other folk on a similar itinerary so we have them carry some of our luggage to Avignon, where we'll be dropping off the car.

Meantime, Europcar actually sends us a bill for two days use of the car we couldn't pick up, saying that we reneged on our reservation!!!

Europcar cost us a full day of our trip, plus pretty significant hassles due to car size (we'd arranged for a Kangoo and ended up with a Modus).

Has anybody had success dealing with a real live person at Europcar that can see the issues and address this? I'm back in the US now so probably at a bit of a disadvantage. Obviously I can dispute the charge for the unobtainable car with my credit card company, but beyond that?

I should add that two years ago I had no issues at all with Europcar.

thanks-

Europcar did a real number on our France trip. We'd arranged to pick up a car in Chambery on July 18th (Saturday); we've got lots of documentation from Europcar saying that their station in Chambery at the train station was open until Noon, closed until 2pm, then open again until 6pm (the usual for France).

We arrived on the train, with our two bikes and luggage (lots of stuff; when you're following the Tour de France and bringing bikes, you can't travel light!) and walk to the agency where we find a hand-written sign on their door announcing that they are no longer open Saturdays. You can see the sign here- (http://www.chainreaction.com/europcar_no_sat_note.jpg)

Nobody to talk to, no way to get all our gear to a station several miles away that may or may not have our car, and running out of time. So we get on another train to take us to Albertville (our destination) and a cab to our hotel.

I contact Europcar via email and don't get a response for a couple days; meantime I do some research and find they have a station in Grenoble that's open Sundays, so my son and I ride to Grenoble to pick up a car there. Unfortunately they have no suitable-sized cars available for our two bikes and luggage, which will cause issues down the road, but we take what we can get for now.

Europcar eventually gets back to us and says we should talk with the local station in Albertville but they have no cars. We come across some other folk on a similar itinerary so we have them carry some of our luggage to Avignon, where we'll be dropping off the car.

Meantime, Europcar actually sends us a bill for two days use of the car we couldn't pick up, saying that we reneged on our reservation!!!

Europcar cost us a full day of our trip, plus pretty significant hassles due to car size (we'd arranged for a Kangoo and ended up with a Modus).

Has anybody had success dealing with a real live person at Europcar that can see the issues and address this? I'm back in the US now so probably at a bit of a disadvantage. Obviously I can dispute the charge for the unobtainable car with my credit card company, but beyond that?

I should add that two years ago I had no issues at all with Europcar.

thanks-


Contact National in the US and they will put you in touch with their international desk, and will pass on your complaint to Europcar. Europcar is National's affilialte in Europe (although ownership is completely seperate). National sold their European operations a few years ago to Europcar, who now operate both Europcar and National in Europe.

I thought Europcar was independent from National and that Alamo and National are under the same ownership...

I thought Europcar was independent from National and that Alamo and National are under the same ownership...

Correct, as I said in my comment above, they are seperate ownership. Europcar and National have an affiliation agreement. In otherwords, Europcar customers can book rentals in North America, which are facilitated by National and vice versa. When National sold their European interests to Europcar, they created an alliance or affiliation agreeement with Europcar. It's a win win, as National can continue to offer a global rental service to its North American customers and Europcar can compete with AVIS & HERTZ by no longer just being limited to offering car rentals in Europe and Middle East and Africa.