Advantage Rent-A-Car

On November 11, 2001, the following reservations were made via your website for a car rental from Houston, TX to Alabama for the Thanksgiving holidays:

Advantage Auto Rental; Intermediate Car Size; Trip ID #737771746983; Confirmation Code 1518479463RZ; Pick Up Date: Tues., 11/20/2001 @ 9 PM; Drop Off Date: Sat., 11/24/2001 @ 9 PM.

My family and I arrived at the Advantage Hobby Airport location in Houston, TX on the scheduled pick up date for the rental car. Upon arriving we were told that several other rules applied to our car rental. First, the car could not be driven out of Texas to Alabama. Second, Advantage did not honor certain private auto insurance providers. In our case, they would not honor Rodney D. Young Auto Insurance.

Neither of these two rules were mentioned on the website through Travelocity. We were very upset and told them that we considered this deceptive trade practices. This also left us with no car rental for our planned holiday since we planned to leave the following morning. I demanded that they arrange an alternative rental through another company. Although, the young woman at the desk tried a couple of companies, no cars were available according to her. I then demanded to speak to a supervisor about this matter. A call was made to the Advantage at the Houston Intercontinental Airport location and I spoke with someone who identified himself as Jeff Gucheau. Mr. Gucheau was no help. He informed us that we would have to purchase auto insurance through their provider. This greatly increased our rental costs. Also, he would only O.K. the car rental upon our promise not to take the car outside the state of Texas.

The following day we had to find an alternative rental. After several failed attempts we found a rental at Avis Auto Rental. We returned the rental car to Advantage and paid $83.08 for an overnight rental.

Unlike Advantage, the Avis provider was professional and there were no unpleasant surprises resulting in unexpected costs to the consumer.

I felt that you should know about Advantage's policies. I plan on making this complaint directly to Advantage's corporate headquarters, my local Better Business Bureau and the Texas Attorney General's Consumer Complaint's Department. Such practices are unconscionable