Nothing could have prepared this woman for what happened when she went to pick up the car rental she booked a whole eight months in advance.
In a trending TikTok video, a distressed-looking traveler, Hannah (@hannah.s11), warned viewers never to rent a car from Avis or Budget (which are under the same parent company, Avis Budget Group).
She, trying to be extra prepared, booked a car many months in advance of her trip, only to show up for pickup after her flight and be told they had no cars.
On top of that, she saw them give a car to someone else who was in line with her.
What she was most taken aback by was that the company didn’t even bother to let her know before hand and didn’t offer alternative solutions.
“WITH NO NOTIFICATION, leaving us ZERO OPTIONS once we landed. Thanks so much AVIS AND BUDGET for leaving us stranded at the airport at 9 p.m. in a city we have never been to!!!” she exclaimed in the caption.
Some people in the comments section urged Hannah to try Turo, which is like Airbnb for cars. But the company has also faced its fair mix of controversy, from one person saying a renter damaged his Tesla to another stating the company wouldn’t help after a renter abandoned her car in a city four hours away.
Why does this happen?
The New York Times reported that unlike hotels, airlines, and even long-distance buses, rental car companies rarely require you to put a card down for your reservation or make any kind of payment in advance.
While that may be helpful for people who don’t feel comfortable paying upfront or who want a penalty-free cancellation, it creates a problem for rental car companies. Without the looming card or downpayment, it’s impossible to predict who will and won’t show up for their car and what they’ll actually have available.
In some cases, that means a family ends up in a tiny sedan instead of the SUV they expected. Or people who want to rent a luxury vehicle for a day are relegated to a standard Toyota.
It seems like a no-brainer that car rental services should consider requiring upfront payment so they can better manage their fleet availability.
But Jonathan Weinberg, founder and chief executive of AutoSlash, a car rental site that searches for the best deals, told the NYT that it’s hard to implement a policy like that now after customers have come to expect risk-free reservations.
However, in a bold move, Hertz now requires renters to put down a credit card number. If they don’t show up, they get charged for one day of the car rental.
Despite this, you may be shocked to hear that while car rental companies commonly overbook, expecting some drivers not to show and often run out of vehicles, only about one percent of rentals aren’t honored because of lack of vehicle availability, USA Today reported.
@hannah.s11 WITH NO NOTIFICATION, leaving us ZERO OPTIONS once we landed. Thanks so much AVIS AND BUDGET for leaving us stranded at the airport at 9 p.m. in a city we have never been to!!! #AVISRENTALCAR #rentalcar ♬ sad SpongeBob music – michael
How to ensure you get a rental car you reserved
The answers NYT travel columnist Seth Kugel got from company reps to customer service folks weren’t very satisfying.
One rep advised him to call the local car rental branch as your travel date approaches to check if they predict increased demand (so you can prepare a Plan B).
Another told Kugel to upgrade to the brand’s loyalty program, prepay, and add flight information to the reservation.
“Advice was all over the place and frustratingly devoid of promises, leaving me with the sneaking suspicion that companies simply give cars away in the order people show up, no matter who they are or how or when they reserved,” he reported.
In some situations if no vehicles in your class are available but they have other more expensive ones for rent they may upgrade you at no cost. And USA Today states that if all else fails it’s “an industry practice to pay for a car rented from a competitor.”
When this happens at Alamo they source cars from other Enterprise brands (since that’s Alamo’s parent company) in the vicinity.
The Daily Dot reached out to Hannah for comment via TikTok direct message and comment and to Avis Budget Group via email.
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