Dearest Alamo Bastards,
Recently I had the experience that every traveler dreads: hop onto an airplane, fly 3000 miles away from home, get to the rental-car counter (or hotel counter) and the ever-so competent attendee informs you that, “we are unable to honor your reservation.” I try to remain calm and reason with your employee, “but, I made the reservation over a month ago and here is my conformation number (I hand him the printed e-mail, in its entirety).” “Yes,” he says, “I have your reservation in the computer, but we’re unable to honor it.” I refrain from saying that I heard him perfectly well the first time, and that, so far, he has been unable to answer any of my retorts to his pre-programmed set of responses that he learned, no doubt, in Alamo training school before he was set out onto the public—I figured, why clog his already overloaded brain?
He adds some extra data to the conversation, “have you ever rented from us before?” I exclaim, “I’m not sure, but my guess would be yes.” “Did you return the car late” he said; as if that would suffice as I stood there, 2 O’clock in the morning my time, 3000 miles away from my home. I said, “probably not, but even if I did, my credit card paid the balance.” He retorted, “I can’t help you anymore; here’s the number for ‘problem-renters.” I refrained, once again, from informing him that he hadn’t helped me in the first place, so saying that he would not longer be able to help me would not be entirely correct as ‘no longer’ indicates some form of previous help; that, in fact, he had not accomplished, but alas, I digress.
He gave me the number to call to “straighten things out.” He informed me, after I asked to use the phone, that he would be unable to let me use their phone. I refrained, once again, from asking him what exactly he is able to do as all I get from him is what he is unable to do. I walk to a pay phone and call the 1.800 number; thankful it is a toll-free call. I am directed directly to voice mail; I am confused. If Alamo is unable to rent a car to me that they reserved to me, why is no one able to honor this reservation? And more importantly, why am I given a number that goes to voice mail? I walk back to the counter and inform your employee that the number goes to voice mail. He informs me that, you guessed it, he is unable to help me.
I remind myself that it’s a service economy; that those folks that, 15 years ago, would have been hanging off the back of a garbage truck, are now servicing customers.
Luckily I was traveling with another person; to which he said, “I can rent a car to her.” “Only if she didn’t previously return a car late, though?” I said. I realized I shouldn’t have said this as he was confused and trying to think about what I said and type at the same time. I informed him that I was only joking, and to please transfer everything over to my traveling partner’s name.
My traveling partner was on the cell phone off in the corner when your employee informed me that the rental for one day would now be $79.00 for one day. “I have to” he started to explain after I shrieked at this, “treat you as a walk-up now.” I informed him that was fine, being treated as a common walk-up now, but that the convertible that he was now trying to rent to me, and at the price he was trying to rent to me, was a but much. When I asked him what happened to the car I reserved he exclaimed, “that car is no longer available.” I retorted, “did it disappear in the last 5 minutes?” “No,” he said, “it’s just no longer available.” I tried to do my best to explain to him that the sole purpose of the reservation is to hold the car until the customer pick up said car, but he was unmoved; speaking only to inform me that the car was unavailable.
To make a long and very un-necessary story short, I spoke to the manager and had my original car applied to the “walk-up” status that myself and my traveling companion had thrust upon us. I am a bit lost at why an Alamo employee would not go to great lengths to do everything to ameliorate this problem; this problem that is, no doubt, the result of some blundering data-entry clerk at Alamo mixing my name up with someone else. But, I know it is a service economy and with that, the service cares nothing of the customer as there are always ten customers behind every customer turned away—turned away, even 3000 miles away from their home.
Had the above been the only problem with Alamo , I might not have written this tome, but alas, and of course, it is not. It seems the Alamo corporation is plagued with many and varied mis-management issues.
Awaking at 3:00am the next morning—that is less than 4 hours of sleep after haggling with the desk clerk at the San Diego Alamo rental car counter—and having to be in Los Angles at 6:00am, I place the key in the ignition of the Alamo and the car furiously turned over and over but did not start. I thought I was doing something wrong and turned the ignition back and pulled the key out and reinserted it and tried it again, but to the same result, or lack of result. I left the key in the accessory position for several minutes and tried to start the car again, but, again, to no avail. I tried every “trick” I could think of to start the car; save consulting the stars for guidance.
I decided to call your road-side “assistance” for, well, assistance. I was placed on hold for over 10 minutes—yes, I kept track. As it was 30 minutes later, and I had budgeted 40 extra minutes for u-turns and such, I was a bit eager to get-a-moving. To Alamo ’s credit, and believe me I am hesitant to give an ounce, your roadside assistance operator was quite nice and helpful—even if she was reading from a pre-prepared script. I explained to her what was going on. She asked the obvious, if necessary, questions, “did you leave the lights on; does it seem like the battery is dead?” etc.
I spent about 8 minutes, yes I counted, on the phone with her trying every bizarre suggestions she had—including the ever-puzzling, “pull the key out and wipe it off and try again.” The final suggestion was to try the “other” key on the ring. Now, before I reveal the punch line here, let me just say that the key I was using was, in fact, turning the engine over; it fit perfectly; it unlocked the steering wheel and turned on all accessories; now why would a key exist that did all that but didn’t actually start the car? Perhaps a better question is, why would this key be on a key-ring that you give to customers? So, the “extra” key did in fact start the car. Your roadside assistance person tried to assuage my frustration by suggesting the key was a valet key. This, of course, is absurd as the sole purpose of a valet is to drive the car; hence, the car would need to start.
This is the point in the letter where I tell you how 90% of your employees are bumbling idiots. This is the point where I ask you if you are in the car rental business or the, “let’s be complete fucking assholes” business. This is the point where I suggest you should fire every asshole at your San Diego Alamo or National or do business (yes I’ve starting looking into who owns you and who you own) with any of your subsidiaries. And lastly, go fuck yourself.
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