exaachener

I made a reservation with Alamo in BRU for 6/2-6/11
At the airport there was no counter for either Alamo or National
Instead I was directed, by a tiny sign, to Europcar.
According to the employees, Alamo/National rental car in Holland and Belgium are out of business. Europcar is supposed to take care of any reservations made in the US for those countries.
Lot of good that did me !
No reservation in their - Europcar -system !
I had reserved an automatic,with an Entertainment Book upgrade coupon to next class. After prolonged discussions,I would have been happy with just any automatic. I even tried Avis next door, but they wanted 3x the price,since I did not have a reservation.
Europcar ended up giving me a nice new Lancia ,whatever that is,
stationwagon. With a manual transmission !!!!!!
The rental lasted 8 days,just enough time to finally get used to driving a manual.
I never thought I would have to confirm a reservation by calling the rental location,but that is what I will be doing from now on.
The personnel at Europcar tried to be helpful, but failed in the typical european fashion. They said they only had 5 automatics,and those were all rented. They should have giving me a higher class of car with automatic transmission.
Funny, in the rental car garage, there were lots of Mercedes with automatic.
I'm glad to be back home !!!!!!!

thecourtside

haha nice so you got to learn stick on a rental car which you were forced to drive

noah

National has been handled by Europcar for years.

exaachener

I rented a car from Alamo in February 2009 ,very nice BMW : AUTOMATIC !
no mention of Europcar. That made me expect great service for the next one !
This reservation ( 6/3 - 6/11 ) did not show up in Europcar's system.
The employees at BRU were nice enough to accept my booked rate, but were not able to provide me with an automatic transmission vehicle.
According to them , the company that operated National/Alamo in Holland and Belgium has filed for bankruptcy and all operations have been absorbed by Europcar.
What I have a problem with, is, that my confirmed reservation was not anywhere to be found on Europcar's reservation system.
I can only blame Alamo/National for that!
I expect Alamo/National to provide their US customers with the service they contract with, at the time a reservation is placed.

dstan

Welcome to FT (posting), exaachener!

And thanks for the heads up!

JonathanIT

I recall renting out of BRU last summer; it was definitely a Naional location then. They even mentioned that my Elite EC card was good for avoiding the counter.