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Word of warning when using priceline name your own price for cars


sghokie
By sghokie,
in

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Well I booked to pickup a midsize in MIA this past week. I had shopped around and found that the name your price was a bit cheaper than other options.

I went for it. Ended up with Hertz.

However on my travel day my flight was canceled, I had no choice but to get a flight to FLL.

Hertz wouldnt let me pick up in FLL since I booked with priceline.

I took an uber to MIA so I could get the car. Uber was great, only 30 minutes and a good deal too. Highly recommend uber.

 

Get to the Hertz counter and they had no cars. Despite me prepaying and arriving after the time specified for pickup.

It was pretty much just like Pop Copy, they didn't give a crap. I definitely felt like Steve Martin at this point in my day.

 

They had no idea when they were going to get a car to give me. There where a lot of people waiting for cars already, although some people left the counter with rental agreements during the time I was waiting for a manager to talk to and other people were waiting for cars too, so obviously they had cars for some people.

It was pretty ridiculous.

 

I called priceline to bitch at them. They said I could go somewhere else and priceline would pay the difference between what I found somewhere else and the priceline that I had paid.

I found just walking up to the counters you could get better prices than what is online.

 

I ended up paying $60 more for the 4 days than what I had done with Priceline.

Online it was over $100 more.

 

I need to submit the receipt though to get the refund.

 

I am pretty sure Hertz figured they could take higher dollar business from non priceline customers for a bigger profit.

 

Any how, would not recommend Hertz and would be very leary of using the name your own price for cars.

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Sorry to hear you had a difficult time with this rental, but glad to see that PRICELINE offered a good resolution of having you rental from a different company and have promised to pay the difference.

Hertz wouldnt let me pick up in FLL since I booked with priceline.

Not surprising since the location you rented may have cost much less than the location you actually arrived at. Imagine if your rental was for a place (such as) Newark Airport, but you ultimately wanted to rent once inside Manhattan (which is very expensive)... the rental company wouldn't just swap the rental because of the price difference (although if they had looked at the shortage of inventory in Miami they perhaps could have made an exception to the rule since it would have made things easier on everyone, including the company, but i assume the call center you spoke to was not aware of the inventory shortage in Miami)

Well I booked to pickup a midsize in MIA this past week.

Please share your win with the board in the Priceline Car Rental forum. :)

There where a lot of people waiting for cars alread...

I am pretty sure Hertz figured they could take higher dollar business from non priceline customers for a bigger profit.

Given the large number of other people waiting, i doubt they all booked on PRICELINE, so there were likely some other factors involved. Unfortunately, just like hotels and airlines, sometimes rental companies 'play the averages' (or have computer issues) and overbook in anticipation that some travelers will be a 'no show' and they can collect additional revenue. All works fine until there is a situation where everyone with a reservation actually shows up, which then causes a big problem, since the service provider simply can't produce a car, hotel room, or airline seat that they don't have.

I have had direct car rental bookings where the company was overbooked and just didn't have a vehicle available at the time of the rental, and it is likely that you would have had the scenario you described above regardless of how you had booked.

Hope the rest of your trip and future travel goes smoother than this trip has stared.

Please use this HOTWIRE and these PRICELINE LINKS: HOTELS, CAR RENTALS, and AIRFARE to begin your travel purchases

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