Ritual Car Rental Complaint

You know the drill ...

This is such a frequent complaint, from so many people, for so many decades, that I don't see my little voice changing anything, so I'm not even going to bother naming the company (in part because the ladies we interacted with were so pleasant, etc., that I don't feel the need to slam them).

1. Tamara specifically reserved a medium-sized car -- not a compact, but not a large car or SUV.
2. When we arrived to get a car, we were told that they had none of those available ... for the drive she had specifically booked the reservation for, which was from St. Louis to Gainesville. They had a lot full of that type of car, just none they were willing to rent for non-local return.
3. So, they were going to "upgrade" us, at our expense. Which is what they ended up doing, although the additional expense was less than the initial quote, probably because we were about to walk out and go to another place.

The reasons Tamara booked a mid-size car were threefold:

1. There were only three of us, so we didn't need, say, a Lincoln Town Car or a Ford Explorer to comfortably hold five or six.
2. We weren't planning to haul a piano or anything. Just the luggage we brought when we flew in (one suitcase total plus our "personal item" carry-ons), plus a few things we picked up in St. Louis (a case of Fitz's root beer, a couple of vinyl LPs, and a few other, small, items). We didn't really need a cargo bay. The back seat and/or a trunk would have been more than sufficient.
3. We were driving about 900 miles and preferred a vehicle with good gas mileage.

What we got was a Ford Explorer.

That was not an "upgrade." There was nothing it had that we wanted or needed that the mid-size sedan wouldn't have had, it was less pleasant to drive (especially for Tamara, who is 4'10"), and it probably got at least 10 miles per gallon less than the sedan would have.

To put it a different way, instead of charging us extra for a supposed "upgrade," they should have been knocking the price down for sticking us with a car we didn't want, a car that we didn't need, and a car that cost us more to drive.

Just sayin' ...