CrazyOne

Interesting stuff. I'll have to pay attention as I have my first Budget rental next week. The shop is indeed a franchise (downtown Pittsburgh), but it's one that's been Avis for many years and still is. I rented from it earlier this year as Avis and got a really nice car (one of those loaded Tauruses, and I booked Standard) with no status at all. We'll see how it goes, but it's a small downtown location and I'm sure they don't have Avis fleet and Budget fleet or whatever. Maybe they're stingier or assign older cars to Budget customers, not sure. I have no idea how long they've had a Budget sign in the window and been taking reservations as Budget. All I know is the price is way lower than anything else in town for those days. Everything else priced up what I consider to be crazy expensive for a 4-day weekend rate around here, including Avis at the same location. Perhaps this is intro special or something, whatever, I'll take it.

That whole "All I have left is XYZ car" then charging for an upgrade to it without saying so is really, really lame. Not at all unreasonable to complain about that. They're trying to slip the extra fee past you! It could be in some cases bad agents maybe? I don't know about Budget but I've heard at Hertz that such at-counter upgrade fees pay a fairly healthy commission to the agent.

Auto Enthusiast

Budget's Customer Care website section shows all Pittsburgh locations as corporate-owned. A franchisee might run it, as is often the case for Avis/Budget neighborhood stores, but the cars are all from the nationwide circulating fleet.

CrazyOne

Ah, interesting distinction. Thanks. So the guys over here are not buying their own fleet and such. That also would help explain how they could easily tack Budget onto the existing Avis shops without them all crying foul. Although I still wonder who is taking the most hit on my Budget rate being so much less than the Avis rate.

And dug all through that web site though and still can't figure out where you're reading this from....

Auto Enthusiast

In the middle, click Customer Care. Click Common Questions. Scroll down and click on the underlined Corporate-Owned Locations. A pop-up will open, asking you to type in the location or airport code, and will provide a link to look it up if you don't know what it is.

You should complain if the experience at any location is unsatisfactory, but that location finder will tell you to what extent problems can be readily addressed at the corporate level. There are a few places, such as Atlanta, where Budget and Avis are right across the street from each other, but Budget is an independent licensee and Avis is corporate. This leads to different rules, experiences, and problem escalation outcomes.

BearX220

Franchisees will inevitably have a mix of owned cars and corporate cars that came in on one-way rentals. For return-to-same-location rentals they would much much much rather rent you an owned car, saving the corporate cars for outbound one-ways. I had a big fight at MHT a couple of years go with a Budget clerk who was insisting I take a filthy Jeep Wrangler with knobby tires and a canvas roof because "that's all we have left," even though I had reserved an intermediate car and the Jeep was parked amid a sea of corporate Avengers, Fusions, etc. I won but I think that may have been my final rental with Budget.

jackal

That's because the franchisee has to do a revenue-split with the owner of the car being rented. If they rent a corporate car out (or a car belonging to another franchisee), they don't get to keep all of the rental revenue. (I'm not as familiar with the Avis Budget world, but at another company, it's a 60/40 split, with 60% going to the vehicle's owner.)

Cpeterson8

So this bothers me, as a Avis Budget group Employee.
Yes Its true. We make commission. Yes its true sometimes we run out of cars because dispite the negitive attitude consumers have, you all rent a lot of cars. I do not work in ohio. I have never been to Ohio. I am sorry that this happened to you, but as a rental agent I have verabge that to me screams this will cost more and i still have customers who come back and say I DIDN"t KNOW THAT WAS AN UPGRADE!! Word for word "I reccoment (or suggest) a Hyundai santa fe, our intermidiet suv, it gives you all wheel drive for your peace of mind, and better visiablity for your convience! And with your reservation, we could arrange a great deal on that for you!" if the rep said somthing like that, then you need to be listening. Its like when your shopping you arent going to buy everything the sales lady suggests, are you? Don't you want to know how much it cost? Now if they had said, all i have left is the Hyundai santa fe or a minivan, i would assume the van was free. and santa fe is more money. You could disupte this, and remember you catch more flies with honey then you do with vinigar.
Think back, did they say free? Did you ask how much? when you went outside was it really the only stand alone car? Why didn't you go back in for a Veh. exchange durring your stay if you were unhappy with the F class?

PETEFLYS

Well I say 50/50 Budget and the poster. First renting a car for any amount of times you should be signed up for there program. LOts of airlines give status in car rental companys. The second thing is yes lots of times it is all they have on the lot. They would have to re-print the contract which would have had the up grade fee on there and you should have asked if they were going to charge anything for that vehicule sometimes turning the table and asking for a lower rate since they do not have the class car you asked for and they are making you use a gas guzzler that no one else wanted to take.
I would probaly fight the charge with the station manager or customer service first.
I guess it is buyer beware.... and make sure you know what you are being charged before you leave the parking lot.