(This may belong in the UC questions thread but it's not entirely on topic for there... mods feel free to merge if appropriate)

I had an utterly infuriating rental experience from my home airport (CLE) and before I go nuclear on write a polite but firm letter expressing my disappointment to one of the Corporate execs I wanted to see if I missed a memo somewhere or if I'm off-base.

Background: My wife got a new job in DC. We're getting her an apartment and wanted to take a SUV full of essentials to the apartment to get her set for the first few weeks at least. I thought I had booked a Nissan Rogue or Equivalent using points (apparently I screwed that up looking at my confirmation, which lists a full-size but …)

Anyway, I get to CLE, my name's not on the board so I pop into the booth
"Oh, go over and pick a car from Fullsize 1"
"Are you sure... should be President's Circle, right?"
"Since you're renting one way you have to take a car from the booked class...go over to Fullsize 1. If you take a car from PC they're just going to turn you back at the gate"
"When did that change? I've done plenty of one-ways from President's Circle section with no issues"
"Well, we're a corporate location and its a corporate policy, the independent locations may do something differently."
"Really? Can I talk to the manager on duty... I've done a one-way from PC at a ton of corporate locations without issue -- ATL, LAX, SFO, CMH, PDX, etc."
"My manager isn't available, but we'll talk to the lead"
We went back to the main counter where the lead parroted the same information, and offered to sell me an upgrade for $75/day "instead of the usual $150"...I again requested a manager and was told that she was on a conference call for the next hour. I said I'd wait.
About 30 seconds later the manger called the counter, basically said the same things, and emphatically said that it was a "corporate policy that we enforce at this location"

I can find no such policy publicly documented, e.g. the FAQ says


Without excepting 1-ways or any other kind of rental.

Manager didn't change her position that it was a "corporate policy" that they had nothing to do with and that was that.

I decided to cut my losses, told the MOD that I wasn't happy but I'd take it up with corporate, thanked her for her time, and took the $75/day upcharge.

Anyway aside from the customer service issues/inconsistently/erroneously applied "corporate policy" I'm also wondering if I should have gotten a comped "one class upgrade" that applies at non-UC stations -- I'm not sure if that would have gotten me from the F (again, my fault for not checking the confirmation) to something big enough to be useful... or if that has gone out the window in the UC world.