Flight delay causing late car hire pickup (Booking.com and Ecovia)

brianposter

Lavendyr said:

The one thing I can advise is that your contract will not be with booking.com - they will be acting as an agent between you and the seller, Ecovia.

It may say this somewhere - the law may well disagree.

Bradburts

Hi, I settled on 'duty of care'. Was refunded all my additional expenses and £150 good will. The basic argument was that when dealing with Booking.com you do not expect to be connected with a dodgy car renter. The thing was that Booking.com (once I had the Director's attention) took this as a pure commercial thing; they said that they could downgrade the supplier, lower supplier's search order, demote. Cost and liability. That is Booking's greying algorithm. Booking.com settled with me on that commercial basis and I will write to help others. Personally I think Booking.com should do more to positively vet. It was stressful. Ah, madam, about your axe wielding child care assistant, we have already lowered that supplier's search order rating.

Feeder16

Sorry to bring this back up. 

But I am potentially in the same position as you were and would welcome any advice from you and previous contributors.

Ryanair have changed my flights which means I pick the hire car up 5 hours than originally intended. I notified the rental company immediately, said I was happy to pay an admin fee or similar to sort. I was then told the amendment would cost £650 (original price £200) as I would need to upgrade my car, which I know is nonsense. I rang the next day and they then quoted £200, which again I was not happy with paying for a simple time amendment within their normal store hours. Fast forward this week when my flight is and I ring them again about it and they have told me that if I rock up on the day 5 hours late I will pay a £50 contract reactivation fee and good to go. Which whilst is annoying, I am prepared to pay. 

The problem is, I know full well when I rock up on Saturday despite making them aware of this, I am going to be told they have sold my car and I'll have to pay the activation and for a upgrade. 

Ultimately I know European Law is on my side on this one, as its clearly an unfair contract and they cannot charge £200+ as this is an unfair and unjustifiable amount (they have similar legal provisions for overcharging on fuel). But my fear is I'm going to have to pay the upgrade to then fight for my money back down the line (or via my credit card) as I will have a small child with me and I won't have the time or energy to get into dispute at the airport pick up. 

Welcome any thoughts?