Originally Posted by mproudfoot

I am currently in the middle of a 6-week business trip to the US (mostly Ohio) and booked a 3-week rental of a Compact car with Budget - prepaying through Expedia's UK site. When I arrived into Cleveland airport at the time of my booking, I was informed that all they had left was a Santa Fe (Intermediate SUV) - in fact the actual words were "I hope you don't mind a Santa Fe as that's all we have available". Now, I am here on my own for 6 weeks and I'd have preferred a smaller/more economical car but as it was all they had left, I just took the keys and that was that.

When time came to hand the car back, I got back to the hire car centre and was asked if I wanted to charge to the same credit card.. I agreed thinking this was perhaps one of the various taxes that had not been added into the prepayment. Later on, reviewing the documentation however, I noticed they had charged me $350 of "non-pkg items".

I opened a customer service ticket asking what this was and was told, in reply, that it was an upgrade fee including taxes. I then replied saying I did not voluntarily upgrade - i was given no option to which I received a reply saying they would have to review my bill after 48 hours.

Anyway, after hearing nothing after the 72-hour point, I called Customer Services and asked for an update and was told that as I had signed the contract, they would split half the cost with me. I declined and asked to escalate the issue to a Supervisor which is where the case is now.

Is this normal in the US? I mean, I've rented cars in the US before with Alamo/AVIS and I regularly rent cars in the UK where the rental company have supplied me with a car in a higher band but I've never been in a position where they then tried to charge me for it. Surely, if they are unable to honour the reservation, that's their fault and not mine right?

Or is this fairly common and I'm just being naive?