Charged over 2X reserved rate
 

Returned a car today at DFW and we were charged over 2X what we reserved the car for. Went to front desk and was told that the corporate code I used (employee code for personal use) had a rate change from when I made the reservation ~2.5 months ago. The daily rate jumped from ~$32/day to ~$93 !! I received no notification about this prior to picking up the car. The agent said there was nothing he could do as this wasn't a rate National had control over. What kind of BS is this? If you reserve a car at a certain rate, you should expect to pay that rate. Anything I can do? Dispute the CC charge? Have EE status, but I don't think that means squat in this case.

That's annoying. :(

You should contact National via phone or email and plead your case. If your reservation was confirmed for a specific rate, they should honor that rate.

Be very careful about filing a credit card dispute. It's quite common for rental companies to put renters who file CC disputes on the Do Not Rent list, which means you'd forever be banned from renting from National, Alamo, and Enterprise.

I contacted National via Twitter and an agent was able to issue a refund and a new receipt showing the rate I originally reserved. I have two more rentals booked this summer using contract codes - I hope this doesn't happen again. I had updated both of them just a week ago (changed CC) and the rates didn't change.

I had this happen with the generic EC rate. Updated a credit card and the price jumped. I contacted National who said ANY changes to the reservation could trigger a rate change. I could understand if it was a date/time change which affected pricing, but in this case it wasn't.

My credit card on my National profile has been expired for years...they still let me rent and I supply the card I want to use at the exit booth.

The exact same thing happened to me. My rental confirmation says $290 and I was charged over $800. I called National customer service, and was routed to a rep who said that the rate associated with my contract ID changed between the time of my reservation and rental. National didn't notify me or anything. He flat out refused to issue a refund, stating "that's just business". Beware using contract codes and double-check your receipts! I'm not sure what to do next, but if they don't resolve it, I'll contest the charge on my credit card. Bad customer service if you ask me.

I think national is having some serious IT issues. I returned a vehicle at a small airport location. I dropped the keys with the counter agents and she closed out the rental. I never received the email receipt. I waited about eight hours and called… The phone agent said they could not provide a receipt because the desk agent couldn’t close it out. I could see on my iOS app that the rental was closed. But I could not force the app or the website to send me a receipt.

Two days later I was at another airport location. I asked the desk agent if she could see the closed out rental and send me a receipt. Her first instinct was tell me to call the airport at which I returned the vehicle. I pressed on and she was able to print out a receipt. She confirmed the email address on file and said that she would push a receipt out to me. The emailed receipt never arrived.

I had a similar experience a month or two back. I always get emailed receipts so I didn’t notice until I was back home later that night that I was charged 3 times what the reservation said. I called customer service and the first associate I spoke with told me she could see the reservation amount and what I was charged and that they were different but had to transfer me to a supervisor or level 2 or something. The supervisor told me a similar thing that the contract rate had changed or that my company may have a new code. After a ton of back and forth about how even the first rep I spoke to could see the price changed but no having no one tell me, they finally gave in and offered me a credit and told me to reach out to my corporate travel department to get a new code. I went online right after the call and my corporate code gave the same prices as not using a code when I tried to make a new reservation.

I reached out to my corporate travel department the next day and they advised that my code was correct and confirmed that they were not aware of any changes in the contract rates and that they should be the same. About a week later I booked my next trip with hertz since the prices were so high but decided to try National again and the same corporate code I provided the call center worked this time with the corporate rates I expected. I’m not sure if it’s some sort of computer glitch or IT issue in National’s system but I’ve been super careful to always check everything and have the confirmation with me at the branch since they seem to be much more helpful in resolving when an issue like that comes up.

Sucks this is happening, and sounds like a National IT issue? The last several rentals I've had, the booth and the return agents have told me the total. Using a corporate rate that is always <$300, I hope I'll notice if they rattle off $500+.

Did you guys discover the revised rate when closing the contract or was this also present when opening the contract? Did the contract at opening reported the booked rate? If so I very much doubt national can revise the rate.

Not sure what you are asking exactly, but when I looked at the reservation on the app or online prior to checking out the car, the booked rate showed. But when returning the car the rate changed. This happened twice in the last few months, using the same rate code. We have another rental next week using a different code. App is now showing reserved rate....we'll see if it happens again.

Worth asking for a paper contract before leaving the gate?

I tried this the second time it happened on my way out of the lot at MSP. The exit agent was only seeing the inflated rate, yet on the app it showed my booked rate. We just left and I contacted CS via Twitter and they eventually got it resolved.

We just returned our 3rd rental this summer where upon checkout the rate had more then doubled from what we reserved. This one was at JFK and used a different discount code than what we used on the other two (other two were at DFW and MSP). Checkout agent at JFK was able to quickly fix the issue.

I just had a 4-day rental from CHS increase from $132.51 to $160.00 per day when I returned the car and got my receipt. I was already on board when I realized it, but I've sent a message to customer support. Mine isn't as big a difference as the OP, but I'm not using a corporate code, just the regular rate.