In the summer of my wife and I planned a trip to England, and booked a van rental for a couple of days through AutoReservation.com with Alamo car rentals, so that we could take friends of ours and our daughter and her boyfriend to the Isle of Wight. When we got to pick up the van in Brighton, they wanted to charge $1500.00 (refundable) on my credit card in advance of renting the van, claiming it was standard practice. I had rented vehicles in England before, and had never been hit with such an advance charge. Friends had even rented from Alamo in England, and had not been hit with such a charge. Not only did they refuse to drop the charge, but staff at the Brighton office who were floating around the background made snide comments to the effect that the counterperson should double the charge. I declined the rental, and we used the car of friends in England, but AutoReservation.com would not refund their $40.00 charge, and Alamo claimed their fees were commonplace when I wrote to them later to complain. Not in my experience! (Incidentally, they put the $1500.00 charge through before I realized what they were up to, and left it there for several days afterwards!) Be careful booking things over the internet--especially with these two companies!
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