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| - Booked car weeks in advance for our trip to Scottsdale over the busy Memorial Day weekend. Advantage Rent A Car ruined my vacation and they'll ruin yours too if you rent a car through them.
Arrived at the Advantage Rent A Car desk around 10:45pm (Friday of Memorial Day weekend). Was told by an angry customer walking out, "They are out of cars."
Walked to the desk. The woman told me, "We are out of cars."
I said, "We have a reservation."
She said, "It doesn't matter. We don't have any cars left."
I said, "Wow. So I rent a car, plan my entire trip around having a car and now I have no car. Sounds like a great way to kick off a relaxing weekend."
She said, "You can call an Uber or you can try to rent from another company."
I said, "Oh, you mean all the other companies with lines of 25 people deep because it's a busy holiday weekend? Or do you mean all other companies, who, if they possibly have a car available, will kill me with price? Or both?"
She said, "I'm sorry."
She then printed out my booking and scribbled "pleases match" on it and referred me to Hertz because they "will probably match price."
I walked away at that point and stopped in at Payless car rental and asked if they had any cars available. He quoted me $380 for an SUV, double the price Advantage quoted for a Hyundai Sonota.
I said, "No."
He said, "$330 is the best I can do."
I said, "I just told you I got scammed by Advantage. You have quite the set of balls to scam me again. No."
And I walked away again.
I watched about 10 other people walk away from the Advantage desk after us. I have no idea how many other people were turned away before us.
We went the entire weekend without a car, relying on Lyft and our resort's "Tesla service" which would drop us off anywhere within a 5 mile radius. We were unable to do many of the things we had planned because of the price it would have cost us to hire Lyft to go to-and-from. Why didn't we rent a car from an off-site location? Because the prices were astronomical given supply and demand and the holiday weekend.
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