Dollar Rent A Car Credit card hold policy not disclosed in reservation process Sacramento International Airport California

There does not appear to be any Rip Off Here. Just lack of research on your part.

As an experiment I went to Orbitz and went to book a rental car from Dollar at Sacramento(SMF). Right on the booking page was a link to car rental rules. Directly from the rules there is the following.

"DEBIT CARD - CUSTOMERS USING DEBIT CARDS TO QUALIFY TO RENT AT THE BEGINNING OF THE RENTAL WILL BE SUBJECT TO A DEBIT CARD SCREENING WHICH MAY IMPACT THE CUSTOMERS CREDIT EVALUATION. IF THE SCREENING FAILS TO MEET OUR DEBIT CARD CRITERIA THE CUSTOMER WILL BE REQUIRED TO
PRESENT A MAJOR CREDIT CARD IN ORDER TO QUALIFY TO RENT
.
A HOLD WILL BE PLACED ON THE CREDIT/DEBIT CARD WITHIN THE RANGE OF 250.00 TO 400.00 OR THE ESTIMATED AMOUNT OF THE RENTAL PLUS 15 PERCENT WHICHEVER IS GREATER DEPENDING ON THE LOCATION SELECTED."

This information took about 10 seconds to find. This policy is consistant with the major Car Rental companies I have rented from. So what more did you want them to do to "Disclose" this. Did you want it in 72pt font making you click it 3 times before it lets you reserve the rental?

You will notice that they accept DEBIT cards but you have to go through additional approvals. Perhaps having your Credit Card declined was enough for them to deny your debit card? So if you had actually read the terms and used the debit card first they may have let you use it for the rental.

Also, for $5 did you think of calling your credit card company. If you have any decent history with them they would have probably given you an instant increase enough to cover it. You may have been on hold for a while, but it would probably have been less then the time it took for you to go to every other rental counter.

Your points are well taken. I did indeed ask for an increase in my credit limit before leaving, and was denied. I was told that increases are not given on request, only when the bank decides to do so.

As for research, okay, I know better for next time. But having to do this on the fly - so to speak - precluded having time for research. I had to book the reservation from my desk at work on news that my 90-year-old mother had fallen and broken her knee (hence the trip) while my mother-in-law was suffering blackouts, while trying to take care of work that had to be done before I left. Such circumstances do not always make time to do additional research.

Obviously, the rules had changed in the few months since I last rented a car. But
I don't think it's too much to ask for policies like this to be included with the reservation information (and, no, it doesn't have to be in 72 point font!) And no one that I spoke to afterwards about this - including several people with a lot more experience than me in renting cars - had heard of such a policy as this.

Be that as it may - the rudeness of the people at Dollar is not excused by this. They could have handled this far better than they did. The National people put them to shame by making accomodations for me.