JFK rental: charged for dearer car group I didn't ask for?
 

A question from a National newbie - maybe you more experienced folks can advise me?

I've recently completed a rental in NY (pickup JFK, return LGA, duration 12 days - traffic on the Grand Central Parkway really slow ;) ). I booked it some months ago via National's UK site: standard SUV, one additional driver - quoted price GBP604 (about $958). They have just sent me the post-rental account and I find they've charged me about $150 more than originally quoted, i.e. $1103 (for the same thing - there is no fuel charge, damage, or other discrepancies between what I booked and what I got).

I queried this discrepancy by email and got the droid-generated response "The price change is due to the vehicle driven. If you change vehicle classes you will be charged for the vehicle driven rather than the vehicle booked." This makes no sense to me: I drove the car the National JFK agent told me to take. The original contract said "Jeep Grand Cherokee or similar" and they assigned me a Ford Edge, which according to the latest receipt is apparently a "Fullsize crossover" instead of a "Standard SUV", whatever that means in the real world. :confused: There was no suggestion at any point that I was being switched to another class of vehicle, nor did I ask to be. What am I missing? Where did I go wrong? Any suggestions for how (and whether) I can usefully follow this up?

Thanks in advance for any help!
B*

You didn't do anything wrong - perhaps reply saying that the car was assigned by a National agent without any request from you. If you were in the US, I would suggest a call to Customer Service but you are in Ireland. You definitely should not be charged differently because they assigned you a car that probably is a slight upgrade from what you booked (could be that they didn't have any on hand - basically an opup in airline speak).

Most of us here in the forum are Emerald Club (or Executive / Elite) so we aren't really that familiar with this type of situation.

Before working to chase down National on this I would make a very close comparison of the rates & fees as reserved vs. as charged. Rates for a vehicle class are guaranteed (and the OP should not have been charged more for a higher class unless he requested it); state/local/airport taxes and fees are NOT guaranteed, nor is the exchange rate. These elements can plausibly add up to the difference reported if the car reservation was made some months ago. If a base rate change is confirmed, this is a great use of a Skype call to U.S. customer service.

Many thanks for the good advice - I will recheck the exchange rates and if that's not the culprit I will follow up with National customer service.

Probably doubtful, but a 1% change in the conversion rate could be the culprit as well.