Approximately 24 hours before I left, I booked my trip via Expedia and paid Expedia for a car by Advantage Rent A Car for around 6 days. I paid the tax and the Expedia.com booking fee also for the entire trip. Everything was set. I had a printed confirmation and I was on my way. I thought I would rent the car from Advantage Rent A Car at the airport once I arrived in Los Angeles and could then start driving to go to different places to do many important things. I was wrong. Some Series of Blamable Events were about to change my entire trip. One of those events was that Advantage Rent A Car would not honor my paid reservation.

Advantage Rent A Car gave away my paid reservation to someone else

I landed at the LAX airport late because of my flight being late. The printed confirmation I had from Expedia mentioned that there will be an Advantage Rent A Car counter at the airport that would give me my reserved car right at the airport. At the airport, however, I found out that the counter was closed, and that I needed to take a shuttle to the Advantage Rental Car office. That took another half an hour or so. Once I arrived at their office, I was told that my reservation was given to someone else because I was late.

I was surprised. I told Advantage Rent A Car that even if I was late, I had paid for the car, so the car should be kept in the parking lot for me even if I was not driving it. They told me that I had paid Expedia, and not Advantage Rent A Car. Therefore, according to Advantage Rent A Car, I had not “completely” reserved a car with them. I was told to contact Expedia directly regarding this.

Advantage Rent A Cars’ only solution was for me to pay for the most expensive car

I asked Advantage Rent A Car what choices I had. They told me the only choice I had was to pay for a Chrysler PT Cruiser, which was around $50 more a day than what I had already paid. I tried reasoning logically that I did not need to pay anything more since Expedia makes reservations for Advantage Rent A Car, and that I had confirmed and paid reservations for a car through them already. I had been charged, and I could verify this with my bank, but Advantage Rent A Car did not bulge. They did not want to listen to what I said, and instead kept on insisting that I was misunderstanding the whole situation, and that I was mistaken that Advantage Rent A Car was required to keep a car for me waiting when I booked through Expedia.

I had a lot of appointments that day, and I felt as if I did not have any options. I was texting Valerie and SP back and forth, telling the whole story. I tried a few recommendations and suggestions, but nothing worked. Advantage Rent A Car did not do anything; they knew I was desperate for a car, and they wanted to make sure I paid them for the most expensive car available that day.

Advantage Rent A Car wanted me to buy car rental insurance through them even when I had that already

On top of that, I was told that I needed to buy extra insurance for the rental car. Expedia has previously told me that my current automobile insurance covered rental cars and that I did not need to pay anything extra, but Advantage Rent A Car told me that I was “wrong“, and that they did not honor any such agreements. Before this trip, I had never heard of a rental car company in California which required customers to buy rental car insurance even when they already had such a coverage through other insurance companies.

Nearby rental places had cars for almost the same price, or they were all booked

After they kept arguing for a few hours, Advantage Rent A Car told me clearly that they did not make any mistake, and that I should take up any issues with Expedia directly. I decided to check the neighboring car rental companies, and walked around for a while. Almost every place was completely booked, or the deals they had were for the same price as Advantage Rent A Car. I could have gone to more places and would have definitely found something cheaper, but I was running out of time. I had to meet a lot of people and visit a lot of places, and almost half of the day had already been wasted. I decided to go back to Advantage Rent A Car.

I had no choice but to pay Advantage Rent A Car, even though I had already paid Expedia

I paid Advantage Rent A Car for the PT cruiser and the supposedly required insurance coverage. I also paid for their gas as they charge a lot of money if one does not bring back the car with a full tank of gas. The lady at the counter who had argued all day told me that if I brought the car back with any gas left, I would be refunded for the entire tank. Since I knew I was going to drive a lot, that sounded better than paying almost $4 per gallon for a car that drank gas as if it was orange juice.

The car was fun to drive though

I drove the car around for around 6 days, and it was a lot of fun. The car handled nicely, and the seats were comfortable too. It did eat gas very quickly, though I was happy that the car was very comfortable. The PT Cruiser is like a box, so sometimes you cannot see nearby cars clearly if they are behind you by the sides. It took me a few minutes to get used to reversing and checking the roads, but once I got used to it, I was thinking that in the future I might rent similar cars for my travel needs. Also, the car was blue. I like blue!

I did not get any money back for bringing the car back with a full tank of gas

The day I had to leave, I drove back to Advantage Rent A Car. The car had a full tank of gas, but after it was checked back in, I was told that the company would not give me back any money for the tank of gas. I told the person who inspected the returning cars that someone at their office had told me before that I would get the money back if I brought back the car with any gas in the tank. I was told to come around noon to talk to that person directly, as that is when most of the employees that I had dealt with before would come in to start their workday. I had to check in at the airport before 10 am, so I simply left and decided to take care of it later via the phone.

What is the verdict? Advantage Rent A Car took advantage of a customer

I am still in the process of taking care of things. I do not think I will be renting a car from Advantage Rent A Car in the future, unless I make sure I get what I want beforehand and have something in writing from Advantage directly. Maybe I do not need to use Expedia in the future and instead need to contact Advantage Rent A Car directly. Maybe services like Expedia that act as connecting wires between customers and businesses can cause headaches. I am still trying to sort out things to figure out whether Expedia was at fault or if Advantage Rent A Car did not honor a binding contract. Expedia told me that they would refund me the money soon, after their corporate office looks into the matter.

Regardless of what happens, I now know that even if I pay for something online and have a printed confirmation, some companies still do not honor any agreements with customers due to various reasons.

Stay tuned for the next post that will tell you how Advantage Rent A Car contacted Expedia regarding my dilemma, which resulted in my hotel reservation being canceled completely!