Alamo failed to honour booking please help

greenarmysam

Hi. I need some help and advice regarding a booking I made through Alamo/Europcar. Apologies for the length i have tried to edit it down.

My sister was travelling to Cardiff Airport. Unfortunately she had a breakdown and required a hire car to get home. The only problem being her driving licence was at home.

An agreement was made with Alamo that I could present the local branch with my sisters driving licence and they would call through to Cardiff to confirm.

I did this on 5 days before her return. My sister called Cardiff the day before her return flight and was told there was no record of this. After a few heated calls Alamo acknowledged the original conversation had happened but as my local office hadn't sent a follow up e-mail it hadn't been recorded at Cardiff. As it was a Saturday my local office had shut. Alamo gave no alternative how to resolve this except refund the hire car fee.

This meant that my sister was stranded in Cardiff with no means of getting home on a Sunday evening. I managed in the end to get someone to travel the 330 mile round trip and pick her up.

I sent a complaint e-mail to Alamo on the Monday explaining the above. 10 days later I got a response from Europcar customer services apologising for the error and stated the following:

“we do apologise for the inconvenience the two branches and staff have caused, we will cover Ms *****'s travel expenses for the service failure. Please forward copies of the travel receipts, alongside card details to which we can reimburse these expenses to”

Now we didn’t keep fuel receipts so I e-mailed them back stating how much the fuel cost, the toll bridge and parking.

I’ve received an e-mail back today stating “Unfortunately, we will be unable to reimburse travel expenses in this case, as we do require receipts for auditing purposes. Once again please accept our sincere apology for the delay in responding to you and any inconvenience caused.”

What’s my next move?

Thanks

Kurtis_Blue

The only thing I can see you need reimbursing for is one tank of gas, have you not got any bank / credit card statements for around that time showing 1 fill up?

greenarmysam

Yeah i was only looking for fuel and the £5.50 to get into Wales:)

Only receipt i have is for £25.00 fuel the day before which is just over half of what it cost and I've already told them i have no fuel receipts.

My issue now is they've accepted responsibility but will only offer reimbursement if I have receipts:(. I even sent them an aa route plan showing the exact distance and based by fuel costs at 15p a mile.

jfdi

Could you, yourself, raise an invoice - attach your calculations, receipts etc as supporting documentation - & send that?

It'd give them something for their audit trail!

thescouselander

jfdi wrote: »

Could you, yourself, raise an invoice - attach your calculations, receipts etc as supporting documentation - & send that?

It'd give them something for their audit trail!

Seriously, I actually think you should do this. Don't forget to add on costs for servicing and depreciation on the car.

greenarmysam

Thanks for the advice.

I'll draft up an invoice and e-mail it to them. Will give this post an update when they respond (probably in a weeks time as per previous response times)

greenarmysam

greenarmysam wrote: »

Thanks for the advice.

I'll draft up an invoice and e-mail it to them. Will give this post an update when they respond (probably in a weeks time as per previous response times)

Well here's the response:

Firstly, please accept our sincere apology for the delay in responding to you and any inconvenience caused.

Thank you for your email addressed to Europcar Customer Services, regarding reimbursement of travel expenses, which has been assigned to myself for investigation and response.

Unfortunately, we will be unable to reimburse travel expenses or anything else in this case, as we do require the actual reciepts for auditing purposes.

Once again please accept our sincere apology for the delay in responding to you and any inconvenience caused.

What a joke. I'm forwarding my issue to Watchdog.

Lum

Standard mileage rate approved by the Inland Revenue is 40p a mile. This supposedly covers petrol, wear and tear, depreciation and so on. It wasn't just fuel, there was wear on your tyres, next service will be arriving a little sooner, and so on and so forth.

As for reciepts, unless you paid cash (and lets face it who carries enough cash with them for a tank of fuel these days, it's about 70 quid minimum), there will be bank or credit card statements as proof.