Car hire problem - no cars available
Discussion
Chaps,
Talking to a friend the other day, and he told me of a problem he had with hiring a car over Christmas.
He shopped around and found a place that was offering Megane/Focus-sized cars for a very good price. Think it was a smidge over £20 a day. He booked (online), and received a receipt and confirmation of the booking by eMail.
On the day of the hire he turned up to the collection place (somewhere in Docklands) with the receipt and the printed-out confirmation of the booking, to be told that the hire place had run out of cars (sounds like they only have about 4 or 5) and hence couldn't provide him with a car. They offered him a full refund on the spot and suggested he should go to the local Hertz. A call to Hertz told him that they didn't have any of that class of car available for the period he wanted (a week), he would have to return it after 4 days, and the price was almost exactly twice as much as that which he had paid to the first company.
This left him with very few options - he was trying to take his family (wife and two small kids) away for Christmas to his folks, up north. He took the refund and ended up with a car from somewhere else for the full period, but the total cost was over twice what he had originally budgeted (and paid) for.
He is now investigating what recompense (if any) he has. The company that he paid but which didn't provide the car has refunded everything and has offered a £10 'good will payment'. I don't know the details of the T's&C's of the (non-)hire, but would have thought that he should be able to do better than that.
Any advice? (preferably based on experience and fact rather than just opinion - thanks!
)
Oli.
Talking to a friend the other day, and he told me of a problem he had with hiring a car over Christmas.
He shopped around and found a place that was offering Megane/Focus-sized cars for a very good price. Think it was a smidge over £20 a day. He booked (online), and received a receipt and confirmation of the booking by eMail.
On the day of the hire he turned up to the collection place (somewhere in Docklands) with the receipt and the printed-out confirmation of the booking, to be told that the hire place had run out of cars (sounds like they only have about 4 or 5) and hence couldn't provide him with a car. They offered him a full refund on the spot and suggested he should go to the local Hertz. A call to Hertz told him that they didn't have any of that class of car available for the period he wanted (a week), he would have to return it after 4 days, and the price was almost exactly twice as much as that which he had paid to the first company.
This left him with very few options - he was trying to take his family (wife and two small kids) away for Christmas to his folks, up north. He took the refund and ended up with a car from somewhere else for the full period, but the total cost was over twice what he had originally budgeted (and paid) for.
He is now investigating what recompense (if any) he has. The company that he paid but which didn't provide the car has refunded everything and has offered a £10 'good will payment'. I don't know the details of the T's&C's of the (non-)hire, but would have thought that he should be able to do better than that.
Any advice? (preferably based on experience and fact rather than just opinion - thanks!
) Oli.
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