SIXT Nightmare!
 

Hi,

Last week I had a booking for a Volkswagen Polo at the Sixt car rental in Aachen (Germany) for week. As I got there (after a whole day travelling) I was handed them my Sixt Platinum Card, my credit card...

I must say; I did expect a upgrade but that wasn't the case and I had no problem with that. After a few minutes waiting the lady at the desk tells me that I cannot get the car because they can't accept my credit card. When I asked the reason why, they said "because the numbers on the credit card to pop out". I was very disturbed because I needed this car to get out of Germany and I never heard that the numbers on the credit card have to stick out.

I aksed if I could speak to the Branch Manager and he came after half an hour. Meanwhile the people at the desk looked in the regulations if it was mentioned somewhere that the card had to be with numbers sticking out but they couldn't find any result.

He told me; "You card is nothing worth, you can't even buy a lollipop in the shop with it". I told sure I can and told him that I have been using this credit card for over a year (flights, rentals, shopping,...). The guy was not interested to hear and sent me out!

I ended up renting with a other rental company who gladly accepted my credit card but it costed me so expensive! I am really upset about this.

I carry more than one credit card for a reason. Even though all the numbers pop out on mine. That situation would definitely be frustrating.

SIXT Nightmare!
 

I also carry multiple cards but being embossed is an excuse; maybe they ran out of cars. Rented from Sixt in Germany and US multiple times with my Citi MC where numbers are printed and not embossed.

In Europe, printed vs embossed cards tend not to be actual credit cards but prepaid debit cards "for electronic use only".

This credit card is accepted everywhere (other rental companies, shops, petrol stations,...)

The problem is that they don't see if it is a charge or a debit card even though it says "VISA" or "MasterCard" on the card and assume:

"not embossed" = "debit card"
"embossed" = "charge card"

It should not be a problem to put a authorization hold on a debit card as well... but authorization holds on debit cards usually expire pretty fast, typically during the next 8 business days which makes them useless for safeguarding e.g. a car rental.

I think somewhere it says that Sixt restricts debit card rentals to certain vehicle categories - the basic ones like ECAR, CCAR, ICAR, SCAR, FCAR, IFAR, and MVAR. But still, they should have given you the Polo for sure.

Anyway, if they really told you your card is worthless and cannot be used for anything... that is plainly wrong. Did they at least try to run your card and it was rejected from the system?

What was the nightmare?

Seriously, this was a problem and somewhere between a mistake and bad service. But, nightmares are when people are seriously injured or worse.

Nothing, they were not intereted in helping me

The nightmare is that 1) I paid a fortune by a different rental company, 2) I got banned from Sixt due to "bad behavior" ...

Though I understand the predicament you went through, I would not call it a nightmare. They did not want to use your card (for whatever reason, right or wrong), did you try using another card? Did they atleast try to swipe/authorize it? If it was a debit card, it might explain why they rejected it?!!

For the second part, can you elaborate a little bit?!

It is a credit card and other rental companies have no issue with this.

They banned me because at the time i was not happy to leave their office without a car or ant alternative to get bacl home.

Today i am still blacklisted by Sixt for this incident.