Passportinonehand

So, a couple days ago I booked an LFAR for a 3 month roadtrip (82 days) across the US. I booked the same category two years ago and got a very well-specced Mercedes GLC, which we really liked.
A couple days after making the booking, some doubts kicked in, as I would prefer to do the trip in a RR Velar which is XFAR, but most of the time you get an Volvo XC90 when booking XFAR, which I would rather avoid for this long a period.

So I wrote an email to customer service asking which exact cars would be available at the Seattle location, to which I got an answer that both categories are not available due to high demand and they made an extra reservation for me for SFAR, which includes Hyundai and Toyotas, not exactly the cars I want to drive 7 or 8,000 miles in. On top of that, I don't think our luggage will fit in those, so I kindly rejected their new reservation.

The question I have now is: what if I didn't send an email to their customer service with my question and just arrived at the Sixt office in 2 weeks and they don't have a car in my reserved booking class? Is there anything I can do? Can I suggest to drive the first few miles (say Seattle to LA) with a lower category car and demand my booked category for the rest of the trip to the east coast?

Anyone had experiences like this with Sixt before where your requested booking class or higher wasn't available anymore? What really irritates me is that if I try to book LFAR for the exact same dates as my reservation, I can still book LFAR, so even though they know they don't have any cars available, they will still accept bookings!

codfishcandy

I've reached out to Sixt reservations in the past, and I wasn't always sure how well informed they were of availability in local branches. In the past at some point I was trying to convert a pay at the counter rental to a prepaid one via e-mail and I got a reply from Sixt which gave me the impression that the information that's on the site takes precedence over what they would write in an e-mail, see below.
If I were in your shoes I would either:

• Get a reservation through the site, and pre-pay it (once I'm certain it's the best rate I'm going to get) - if you walk up with a prepaid reservation which was booked through their own system they don't really have any other option than honoring it, the way I see it
• Call them (they also have a Belgian number if I recall correctly) to see what they can do, or why you can't get a reservation for the class you desire - if you reserve sufficiently in advance, and it's not high season I can't really see what the problem is (barring special circumstances, of course, such as a major conference or something)

As for why you're running into this; I presume they figure they can earn more by renting their higher end vehicles out for shorter stretches, than having someone rent it for 3 months for a neat rate. Though it would be rather disingenuous if this precludes you from renting them for that.

clubman

Out of interest, why? The Volvo is actually a far better car than the disappointing Velar, and an excellent cruiser for a long trip.

Passportinonehand

No idea actually! Probably perception. My experiences with RR have been better than with Volvos.
To be honest, I have never looked at a RR Velar or Evoque from up close, so I have no clue how the 'budget' RR are.

Passportinonehand

The thing is, because it's such a long rental, apparently you can't prepay it. I didn't have the option on the site.
I'm not so keen on calling because, well, I already have the reservation, so in my mind it's their problem if they don't have the car I made a reservation for. Prepaid or not. But I totally get the idea.

Thanks for the advice!!

Passportinonehand

Just a little update as in the meantime we picked up the car and already drove 2000 miles with it. We arrived in Seattle and they offered us a Mercedes-Benz GLC, which is what we ordered. When we asked if they could upgrade us to a GLS, they said they unfortunately didn't have a GLS at the moment, but said they could have an Escalade ready in less than 10 minutes from their other downtown branch. We declined as we'll be doing more than 10.000kms and it's not very friendly on gas. So in the end we ended up choosing the GLC, which is a very good car. All in all great service from Sixt Seattle!

Auto Enthusiast

Hopefully there won't be any issues with the car later. Sixt has very few US locations, for exchanges or one-ways. There are often geographic restrictions for unlimited miles, typically only to adjoining states, with heavy mileage charges to go anywhere else. You said you are starting in Seattle and eventually going to the East Coast. I assume you checked the terms on your contract?

codfishcandy

Source: Sixt website

More importantly:
Must have glanced over that part in your initial post :/

Passportinonehand

UPDATE:

After a little more than 5000 miles, the GLC needed service (the 20.000 miles one), so we dialed the long term rental number and they told us to drive to the nearest SIXT location and we would get a replacement car. So we drove 500 miles to San Antonio, TX got there on a friday evening and unfortunately there was no car available in the same category we booked or higher. The man behind the desk said our best bet would be to drive to Dallas (which is another 400 miles away). Bear in mind that we only have 5.500 miles included in our rental agreement and after that we'll be charged 35 cents / mile + taxes. So the drive to San Antonio and then to Dallas would cost us more than $300 + taxes + gas. We told him we would stay the night in San Antonio and agreed to call back on Saturday to see if they had any availability the next day.

Still no availability the next day, but we were told we should definitely come back on Sunday, because they will definitely have availability then. Stayed another night in San Antonio and went to Sixt on Sunday morning where we were greeted by the German manager, and indeed, plenty of availability! We could choose between a Mercedes-Benz GLS, GLC, Cadillac XT5, BMX X3, ... The manager convinced us to take the X3 and what a great car it is!

On Monday we called the long-term rental number again (they are not reachable during the weekend), and let them know about the fact that we wasted 2 full days waiting for a replacement car. They told us they wouldn't charge us 2 rental days and would drop the extra charge for the additional miles we've driven to drive to San Antonio.
Very curious to see how many miles exactly they won't charge, as they can't possibly know how many miles the detour to San Antonio took. I think we'll drive an additional 5000 miles on top of the included ones, so the extra charge will be between $0 and $2000.

Auto Enthusiast

Were those 5k included miles written in the contract as only to states adjoining WA, or nationwide? I suspect you could pay a lot more than expected.

Imagine if you were several thousand miles away from the nearest Sixt. And worse, if that Sixt was an independent franchise with no corporate-owned cars available for an exchange.

I can't help but wonder where the original GLC was registered, and where the replacement X3 is originally from. Sixt just doesn't have the flexibility for one-ways and exchanges like competitors with a nationwide corporate presence.

Also, how did you "waste" the time in San Antonio? Surely you visited the tourist attractions? Unless you already made nonrefundable plans to be somewhere else.

Passportinonehand

Those 5k included miles are nationwide. Pick-up in Seattle, drop-off in Philadelphia.
Lets say I was in Denver, Colorado when I got the service message, so decided to drive to San Antonio, Texas, because Google told me that was the closest Sixt branch east of my location.

If I would have just done Denver to Philadelphia, that's 1700 miles.
But I had to do Denver to San Antonio to Philadelphia, which is 2700 miles.

Theoretically, Sixt would have to give me at least an extra 1000 included miles in that situation, right?

cestmoi123

"For one-way rentals across state lines, the geographical restrictions described in the table above are waived with a matching itinerary showing the same pickup and drop off locations. However, the Vehicle may only be used in the continental United States as well as British Columbia, Canada."

Passportinonehand

The GLC we picked up in Seattle had a Florida license plate and the X3 we picked up in Texas has a California license plate!
We wasted our time by driving to Austin, which is actually a great city!

Auto Enthusiast

CA plates in TX are actually not that rare, with other companies. Part of it is the spring AZ driveout. Another part of it, especially in Austin, is people moving from CA to TX for jobs and lower taxes.