Travel Troubleshooter: Forced to upgrade my rental car
The rental car that Earnest Hoenck reserves from Hertz isn't available when he arrives in Hamburg, Germany. He's offered two choices: A smaller car that won't fit his luggage, or a bigger car for an extra 10 euros a day. He picks the bigger car, but when he returns the rental, he finds that his bill is even bigger than he expected. What can he do? it came to an extra 357 euros. It was a terrible start for our vacation, and I feel as if the sales person used a bait and switch tactic to make us pay more. I have rented from Hertz many times and I have come to expect a much higher level of service from the company than I received. I contacted Hertz and was offered half of the money back, but I think they should refund the entire 357 euros. What do you think? -- Earnest Hoenck, Charleston, South Carolina sometimes managers will "support" their agents even when they've made a bad decision -- then you should have called the corporate office and explained your situation. A trained phone agent would have been able to fix the problem on the spot. Booking directly through the Hertz site was not a mistake. You probably found an excellent rate. But if you had used a travel agent, you would have had one other person to turn to in order to resolve your problem or act as your advocate when you were overcharged for your rental. All of these things could have been caught and fixed by a well-trained customer service representative answering your e-mail query. But that didn't happen, either. You might have tried appealing to someone at a higher level at Hertz or to a supervisor in Hamburg. I asked Hertz to take another look at your rental record. It found that the agent in Hamburg was "aggressive" when you were renting your car, according to Hertz spokeswoman Paula Rivera. The employee, "did not adhere to our policy of providing a complimentary upgrade if the car reserved is not available." Hertz also failed to fully investigate your complaint. It has issued a 357 euro refund. |
