Booking was great, Alamo were awful

They pushed a certain insurance during the sales process, which we only realized when settling the bill. After some coordination with the car rental service, part of the insurance fee was refunded.

Self-service eliminates the need to queue at the counter

I booked a large MPV on the website, and the estimated total cost was more than 4,000 RMB. When I picked up the car at the rental company, they asked for my credit card. I repeatedly confirmed with the staff that the payment had been made online. They assured me that the car had been paid for and the credit card was only for potential additional charges. When I went to the car lot, all the cars of the same series were parked together. The staff directed me to the pick-up area and matched my order with one of the cars. There were 7-8 cars including Dodge, Kia, and Chrysler. There was also a Sienna, and I asked the staff if I could take it. The staff said any car in that row was fine. I was happy and didn’t think much of it since they confirmed the payment was already made online and said I could take any of the available cars. I drove off, but later I found out when returning the car that I was charged an additional 5,000 RMB. They said it was for a car upgrade, which means the total cost was now 10,000 RMB instead of the planned 4,000 RMB. It's really not cheap. If I had chosen an upgrade myself, I'd be fine paying more, but they charged me without my consent. I don’t think anyone can accept this. I hope others are cautious when renting cars in the future. This was my first time experiencing this in my three trips to the U.S.

The service attitude was very good, the procedures were handled quickly, and we could choose the car ourselves. We were able to get a Jeep with less than 10,000 kilometers, which was great.

Anything over 30 days rental is a nightmare with Alamo. For 66 days hire it ended up being 3 separate rentals. 3 days before car return an abusive email sent regarding my expired debit card and the need to return it to a location ASAP as it was no longer a valid rental. Closest Alamo 2 1/2 hours away. Customer Service also very unhelpful. Wouldn’t take a valid cc over phone or via email yet that is how I booked it all in the first place. Eventually after 2 days of abuse and being told the car would be listed as stolen, given an Enterprise location 30 minutes away. The very first conversation if told I could go to an Enterprise not Alamo location would have avoided all of this as would it have been if I was advised of the issue when the new rental kicked in 4 days before being notified when I was at an Alamo location. Certainly didn’t appreciate being told to take the car back to Los Angeles when I was 21/2 hours north east of San Francisco. I don’t know whether it is a California thing, but lack of service and rudeness seems the norm as well as abuse especially when I speak perfect English but they don’t care and “what” being yelled at me takes up most of the conversation which they then just make up what they want.

Excellent service and total ease of booking. excellent comprehensive information regarding pickup etc and advising prior that Alamo May require the rental to be split as over 30 days.