Alamo Car Hire (FL, USA) - credit card lost, help!

ChrisH

Hi guys,

Hope you can help with this one.

Myself and my partner are travelling to the USA on Sunday 15th April. Last night, my partner attempted to change the PIN number on their credit card and it was swallowed by the cash machine!

We have car hire booked with Alamo on that credit card. The hire is in my partner's name and they have no other credit cards that we can use. We have contacted Barclaycard who will aim to get us a new card within 4-5 days, however I am doubtful that this will arrive in time for our departure.

Does anybody have any idea how much Alamo generally pre-authorise on a card? The only option we may have is for them to swipe a debit card which isn't something I want to do. I'd be happy for them to take the deposit on my own credit card, however it needs to be in the lead driver's name.

The only other thing I can think of is seeing if we can change the booking so that I am the lead driver and add my partner as the second driver, though this will lead to extra charges and we are unable to contact Alamo over the Easter weekend.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Not what you want as you're getting ready to head off away!

photome

ChrisH wrote: »

Hi guys,

Hope you can help with this one.

Myself and my partner are travelling to the USA on Sunday 15th April. Last night, my partner attempted to change the PIN number on their credit card and it was swallowed by the cash machine!

We have car hire booked with Alamo on that credit card. The hire is in my partner's name and they have no other credit cards that we can use. We have contacted Barclaycard who will aim to get us a new card within 4-5 days, however I am doubtful that this will arrive in time for our departure.

Does anybody have any idea how much Alamo generally pre-authorise on a card? The only option we may have is for them to swipe a debit card which isn't something I want to do. I'd be happy for them to take the deposit on my own credit card, however it needs to be in the lead driver's name.

The only other thing I can think of is seeing if we can change the booking so that I am the lead driver and add my partner as the second driver, though this will lead to extra charges and we are unable to contact Alamo over the Easter weekend.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Not what you want as you're getting ready to head off away!

Not sure what to advise except contacting Alamo.

Why cant you contact them, A lot of Car hire companies in the US are open 24/7 and if you booked via a 3rd party in the UK surely they have a call centre open over the weekend

ChrisH

Sadly not, we booked via Virgin who are closed as is Alamo's contact centre.

Murphy_The_Cat

ChrisH wrote: »

Sadly not, we booked via Virgin who are closed as is Alamo's contact centre.

That is really poor service from Virgin, a supposed market leader. IMO.

jen245

Haven't used Alamo before, but when we've used Dollar and Thrifty, they normally pre-authorise $500, so your only option may be to use your debit card. My hubby doesn't have a credit card, and always uses his debit card, he just makes sure he has enough in his account to cover it, hasn't had a problem yet.

knighterrant

Too late to respond to this particular problem, but do have some experience here.

My credit card was stolen 2 days before leaving for Florida last year so I had to get a pre-paid card. Dollar in Miami wouldn't accept this (probably not enough money on it!) so I had to offer them my debit card. I had loads of problems with the pre-paid card (that I talk about in another thread) but thought that my debit card was fine.

But a month after getting home Dollar took $25.25 from my bank account for a 25cent toll fee plus $25 admin charges! I wasn't aware of going on an unpaid toll road but had to lump it. Then last December they took a further $435.20 for a fine for a "traffic light violation"!! This one I did fight and just this morning (after many emails back and forth) they emailed to let me know that the court in Miami had made a mistake and they would be refunding everything. I wait to see that they do.

It appears that all USA car hire agreements are so open that there is no time limit to them being able to withdraw funds from your card. In future I'm going to be getting a new credit card just for holiday use, then pay it all off on return and cancel it.