I'm a journalist working on a story about car-rental upgrades. I'm wondering if anyone has ever had the following experience:

- You arrive at the car rental location. You're told by an employee that your car is unavailable.

- You're given two options: 1) wait for several hours until a car in your class arrives or 2) upgrade immediately for only x dollars per day more.

If this has happened to you recently, I'd like to talk with you. You can contact me at [email protected] or by phone at (407) 699-9529. My deadline is Thursday, March 24 at 3 p.m.

Many thanks,

Chris Elliott

Chris, I usually rent with Hertz, Avis, or National and I've never been asked to pay more for a larger vehicle when the car class I reserved was not available at pick-up.

I did have a situation last October with National where my flight arrived late and they were all out of intermediate size cars. The only thing available was a huge Chevy Blazer. I didn't really want that, but it was after midnight and I still had a 1/2 hour drive to my hotel so I took it. The thing was a real gas guzzler so I ended up paying more for fuel than I would have with an intermediate car. In fact, I paid more to fill the thing than I did for the entire rental! So even though I wasn't charged more by National for the larger vehicle, it still made a dent in my wallet.

I wish the car rental companies would set aside the proper size cars for those with reservations and offer the larger vehicles to walk-ups.

Thanks, MileKing. That's very helpful. My colleague Gary Leff points out that by posting this query several times, I've violated forum rules. Sorry about that, folks. When you're a newbie on these boards -- and when you're posting at 4 a.m. -- these things tend to get overlooked.

It depends, whose fault is it, or whose irregularity was it?

I wqould think the renter would have an after the fact legal case against a rental company that refused to honor a reservation when the renter adhered to all his conditions.

(This is not a complaint) I once showed up early for a rental. The company gave me the choice of waitingg until my appointed time (about 4 hours) or paying more for an immediate upgrade. That was the only time I saw a huge line of people waiting for cars there which line I barely beat. I chose to waait (they let me ride the shuttle back to the airport where I got dinner) and the car I reserved was ready on time. Other times at the same company and location they have graciously given me cars early with no extra charge. This was a "second tier" brand name, Payless.

If the renter arrives late, all bets are off. The company might have or choose to have nothing available or have only walk up rates available, of couse at the risk of gaining a bad reputation however fair or unfair that may be.

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I run a small Dollar location in Montana. If anyone comes in who has a res for say a compact, and all that is on the lot are mis or full size cars, the renter always gets the larger car. It has been discussed everywhere forever that one should always book the smallest car and hope for the larger car.

I was once in Alaska, and looking at the 3 feet of snow at the airport made me question my decision abour the compact, but the agent asked if I would prefer a FordExplorer for $5 more a day. I jumeped at the chance!!

JudyJFLA

I've often been upgraded to the next class, on occasion two classes, when an agency didn't have the car class I'd reserved. I've never been asked to pay the higher rate that the car I got would normally go for. (I've also turned down free upgrades a couple of times in the U.K. when I knew I'd be driving on narrow roads and parking in tiny spaces.)

That said, if one shows up early (more than normal "we landed early" early) hearing "you can have what you reserved at the time you reserved it for, but if you'd rather take one of the larger cars we have available now it'll be $X/day more" isn't unreasonable. It's not like they're unwilling to hold up their end of the deal.

I have never been denied the car class I reserved and then offerred a higher class car for $$/day.

I have only experienced the opposite where they were out of the ultra-smal- super-tiny-teeny sub compact that my company forced us to rent and so they asked me if I would like the (larger fill in the blank here) instead at no extra charge. Two-three car classes upgrades are not unusual. At SJC where I use to rent 2-3x per week, I would rent the tiniest car available at Hertz and would always be angling for an upgrade to the Jaguar!

Same experience as all the others. Anytime they're out of my reserved car class, they upgrade to next available class for free. This has happened at more than one location, and with more than one rental company.

I was at one company in Hartford -- I think it was Avis or Enterprise -- and they didn't have the car class I reserved, and said I had to pay for the upgrade or wait. I was about on time for my reservation. Oh, wait, they offered to give me a minivan for the same price, too (Umm, no thank you). I just held out until they gave me something in a smaller class for a reduced price.

That experience made me go for Hertz whenever I could.

Doesn't seem like you have much of a story here....

I've only had one experience where I was forced into paying for an upgrade -- the San Diego airport Enterprise Rent-a-car location. I won't go into details but the reps were simply awful in many ways. I don't think this is a company-wide policy - just bad tactics by individual employees.

I've never been forced to pay an upgrade fee when the class of car I reserved was not available.

However, I had a situation some years ago with a free upgrade coupon. The terms of the coupon stated "if available". When I presented the coupon I was told the upgrade was only available if I paid extra. I think this was a Thrifty but I'm not sure.

That's happened to me on numerous occasions. I always refused to pay for the upgrade, and magically (sometimes with a 10-15 minute wait) they find a car in my reserved class or they give me the upgrade for free.

Even if they don't charge me for the upgrade, I'm usually irked when they give me too large a car, particularly an SUV. It's not so bad going from a subcompact to a compact or a midsize, but I really don't like driving large cars; I especially hate SUVs. I also don't like sports cars, especially the 2-doors without any real trunk space and barely enough room to fit 2 children much less 2 adults in the back seat. I detest convertibles.

It's very annoying when they "upgrade" me without giving me a chance to object. Like when you go to your Hertz #1 Club space and see a huge SUV when you reserved a subcompact. I recall an incident last year when I went to the parking space with my rental and saw an SUV. I went to the counter to complain; and the agent said, "It's a complimentary upgrade, sir." I replied, "I don't really want an upgrade. Don't you have anything smaller." He very politely responded, "Of course, sir." After a few minutes, he gave me another set of keys and directed to another parking space. When I got there, I found a little red convertible (probably a premium car). At first, I was going to go back and complain and ask for another car, but it was late and I realized that I probably would not need to transport anyone during my trip. In all likelihood, the agent thought he was doing me a "favor" by giving me a premium car for the cost of a subcompact.

PT --

You can notate your Hertz #1 account regarding vehicles that you *don't* want. I've seen this discussed in the Hertz forum.

Bob

Once with Dollar, they tried to get me to upgrade for $10.00/day. When I declined, they gave me the upgrade for my original price, because they were out of the class I reserved. So they were willing to give the upgrade for free, but they would have taken the extra $$ if they could have gotten away with it.