6 Confessions Of An Alamo Car Rental Agent

mkt

Disney's Favorite Scumbag™
Premium Member
Original Poster
from The Consumerist
After reading these six confessions of a current Alamo car rental agent, you will learn:

* The commission hungry mindset of a car-rental agent
* How they're always trying to get you to do unnecessary upgrades
* How the cost of these upgrades are discretionary, and therefore, negotiable
* What a "deeker" is

But most of all, you will learn just how much, for at least this Alamo agent, you are his absolute adversary in his battle to get you spring for costly upgrades and beef up his bonuses.

6. IT'S A SALES JOB
First I'd like to let the cat out of the bag. Yes, we car rental agents do work for commissions! If we can get you to pay more for an upgrade, insurance, gasoline, a GPS, even an additional driver, we get a cut of the extra charges.

5. I HATE "DEEKERS"
At Alamo Rent A Car in [redacted], we are handsomely rewarded for good sales and punished if our sales are poor. The pressure this environment produces leads many of us to fine tune our skills to not only offer extras effectively and to have comebacks to all customer rejections, but to also be able to identify the customers in line as to whether they are buyers or decliners, which we call "deekers". When a customer declines everything you've offered, you've been "deeked". Get deeked enough times by a certain type of customer and you begin to feel resentment towards that group. Sometimes a customer can't be identified as a buyer or deeker until you see the state or country of the driver license. Evidently some states and countries produce more deekers than others. Deekers may at times be legitimate but often they are just cheap people.

4. CHEAP PEOPLE CAN'T FULLY ENJOY A VACATION
A typical example of a deeker is the young couple with two kids, a 3-year old and a 10-month old, on-line with strollers and packing their own child safety seats. He produces his license and credit card but she does all the talking. Offer them a more comfortable or fun vehicle than the sub-compact they have reserved and she will cut you off with a "no". She will also cut you off when you offer her the peace of mind that the insurance will give her or the convenience of prepaying for the gasoline at a discounted rate. Of course there's also a "no" to the GPS because she'll raise the stack of MapQuest printouts in her folder. Listening in silence is the helpless husband as he looks on while imagining driving a sporty SUV instead of the tiny economy car reserved. Enough of these deekers and you may find yourself working in the exit booth of the garage the following month. This punishment can cost you thousands of dollars!

3. TO ALL YOU DEEKERS
First of all, you wonder how this family can fully enjoy its vacation. They are staying in a cheap motel far from the theme parks. The couple's freedom to roam the theme parks with the kids and the strollers is limited. The kids are too young to have future memories of this trip anyway. You even wonder how this cheap couple is going to eat while on vacation. Are they going to smuggle peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into the theme parks to avoid paying the high priced foods there or are they just going to go hungry? Here's a suggestion to those of you that fit this customer profile, leave the kids at home! Leave them with grandma or Aunt Betty and enjoy your vacation! Let your husband drive the SUV he'd like or treat yourselves to a convertible! Wander the theme parks freely and enjoy greater intimacy in a nicer hotel located closer to the parks. You'll enjoy your vacation more and you will help me feed my family!

2. I AM ROLLING IN THE SCRIZZLE
I was a manager with Alamo and I quit to become a rental agent. Why? For the money. When I realized that the average rental agent was making far more than I was and agents didn't have to put up with the stress and responsibilities of management, I resigned. As a part-time agent, I am now making more than 3 times what I was making as a full-time manager! Aside from my modest $8 hourly rate, I'm receiving about $4000 a month during the low season in sales commissions alone! I can't wait for the high season to begin to see how much I'll be raking in. I'm not among the best sales agents but believe it or not, the better ones make six figures. Even some part-timers are earning six figures or close to it. So now you can understand how one too many deekers can have us assigned to the exit booth in the garage and cost us thousands.

1. I WILL CHARGE YOU FOR THE UPGRADE FOR WHATEVER PRICE I CAN GET AWAY WITH
AKA I LOVE BRITS
If we make so much money, obviously many customers are paying more for our extras. Thank you very much! In particular, we love our UK customers which we affectionately call "the Brits". When the Virgin and British Airways flights are in, the Alamo counter is full of agents. The Brits are fun folks and love upgrades. We Alamo rental agents have autonomy when it comes to the price of upgrades. There is a minimum which we must adhere to, usually $11 per day, but we can raise it to whatever we believe the customer is willing to pay. If the Brit wants an SUV instead of the midsize sedan reserved, we may charge him $11 more per day or maybe even $99 more per day. Even better, many Brits have long term rentals, 2, 3, 4 weeks or longer. The longer the rental, the better for us if the customer buys something. For instance, an upgrade of $49 per day for a 3-week rental equals a total of $1029. If the agent can average just one or two sales like this per day, he/she will get a 15% cut of the upgrade sales alone. For this one sale, that means $154.35 commission. Add 15% for all the upgrades for the month, plus say 12% of all the insurance sold, plus 4% for all the gasoline sold, plus 10% for all the GPS sold, and more for all the additional driver charges, and you've got yourself a pretty commission payout check for the month. Monthly commission payouts of over 10 and 15 thousand dollars are not uncommon to the top agents. Again, thank you very much to the buying customers, you are good sports.

wow. I'm the king deeker. And judging by the "I LOVE BRITS" comment, I have a feeling this is from the Alamo at MCO.
 

MsSnuzi

Well-Known Member
I am a deeker also and after reading that, glad I am. Random charges depending on what they can get? Risky business . . . . :lookaroun
 

coasterphil

Well-Known Member
I plan my trip out properly at the start, I don't need the help of a pushy rental agent telling me that things would be better if I'd shell out more money for their personal benefit.
 

BillyBuff

Active Member
Many times a rental agent will tell me I need insurance because my card doesn't cover it but how does he know? I've already checked with my card company before traveling to find out what's covered beforehand so that's why I declined the insurance. My card covers more than what the rental company had offered.

Plus opt out on the fuel charge. You can get better prices off-site. ;)
 

TTATraveler

Active Member
I am a big deeker.:D

I use my discount codes, make reservations and cancel them when the rate goes down and make a new reservation, heck I bypass the rental counter and go right out to the cars.
 

TheDisneyMagic

Well-Known Member
LOL the first thing we say when we get to the Alamo desk is "Hello, how are you... We don't want any upgrade" we are more than capable of asking for an upgrade if we want it, we have used these companies so many hundreds of times over the years that we know what they offer and have booked the vehicle we want.
 

natalia1681

New Member
Dh and I are definite Deekers, and I'm the one with the folder! :king:

I'm the one behind you, thinking, "My folder is not as thick. Maybe I've forgotten something...." (While feeling jealous of your well-prepared folder and slightly paranoid I've forgotten something very important);)
 

tigfan

New Member
Many times a rental agent will tell me I need insurance because my card doesn't cover it but how does he know? I've already checked with my card company before traveling to find out what's covered beforehand so that's why I declined the insurance. My card covers more than what the rental company had offered.

Plus opt out on the fuel charge. You can get better prices off-site. ;)

They also try to scare you into thinking you need the insurance. One of their ploys is they'll tell you that even though your credit card and/or your own insurance policy might cover damage, what it doesn't cover is the so-called "loss of use", which is the money they are losing while the car is being fixed. The seems like a total scam to me, and should be illegal.

What I don't get is why it never seems to fail that whenever I rent an economy size car, they are always out of those whenever I go to pick up the car. But then they say, "But we'll upgrade you for no additional charge". I hate that, because the whole reason I like the economy size cars is that they typically get better gas mileage. The thing is, it happens SO often, that it's got to be some sort of ploy on their part. I've just never been able to figure out what the point of it is, and how they benefit from doing that.
 

mary219

New Member
big deeker here!!!! PS dont worry about how we can enjoy our vacation----we do ,to bad for deeker haters.

PSS-----my folder is way full,but my car rental is the the smallest issue in there.and i do not drive-so yes my husband will silently stand there and hand you his D.L. --and get this - A DEBIT CARD --no credit for a vacation all cash----sorry for being such a deeker!!!

"3. TO ALL YOU DEEKERS
First of all, you wonder how this family can fully enjoy its vacation. They are staying in a cheap motel far from the theme parks. The couple's freedom to roam the theme parks with the kids and the strollers is limited. The kids are too young to have future memories of this trip anyway. You even wonder how this cheap couple is going to eat while on vacation. Are they going to smuggle peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into the theme parks to avoid paying the high priced foods there or are they just going to go hungry? Here's a suggestion to those of you that fit this customer profile, leave the kids at home! Leave them with grandma or Aunt Betty and enjoy your vacation! Let your husband drive the SUV he'd like or treat yourselves to a convertible! Wander the theme parks freely and enjoy greater intimacy in a nicer hotel located closer to the parks. You'll enjoy your vacation more and you will help me feed my family!
"


PSSS---i go during free dining so feeding my family is not a concern--perhaps you would like my pb and j sammies,you could enjoy them while My family and i dine on filet mignon at le cellier,,,deeker deeker deeker all the way!!!!!
 

Erika

Moderator
What I don't get is why it never seems to fail that whenever I rent an economy size car, they are always out of those whenever I go to pick up the car. But then they say, "But we'll upgrade you for no additional charge". I hate that, because the whole reason I like the economy size cars is that they typically get better gas mileage. The thing is, it happens SO often, that it's got to be some sort of ploy on their part. I've just never been able to figure out what the point of it is, and how they benefit from doing that.

If it's anything like a competitor for which my brother worked, it's not so much as a ploy as a lack of planning. It's sometimes just too hard to know for sure who is going to return which car to what branch and when, so unless there somebody stresses a dire need for a particular vehicle, they just don't bother.

Even as an employee, my brother could not get the particular class we needed one busy weekend. We ended up driving 1/2 hour away to a branch whose manager was driving one, and the crew cleaned it up and gave it to us.
 

coasterphil

Well-Known Member
My favorite is when the agent tries really hard to sell the upgrade and then you find out that they are out of cars in your class so they have to upgrade you at no cost.
 

Nemo14

Well-Known Member
My favorite is when the agent tries really hard to sell the upgrade and then you find out that they are out of cars in your class so they have to upgrade you at no cost.
Last year we had rented a minivan from Dollar (or maybe Budget?) at MCO, and the agent tried his best to get us to upgrade from a Caravan to a Grand Caravan. We refused it, signed all the paperwork and went out to the garage to pick up our van, only to find it was a Grand Caravan anyway.
 

mkt

Disney's Favorite Scumbag™
Premium Member
Original Poster
My favorite is when the agent tries really hard to sell the upgrade and then you find out that they are out of cars in your class so they have to upgrade you at no cost.
That happens to me more often than not :D
 

Rob562

Well-Known Member
Tip for the Alamo location at MCO: Use the self-serve kiosks! I've never had ANY line at the kiosks, even though there's a quite-full line at the counter. And you can speed through it pretty quickly and be on your way out to the garage in a couple minutes with no pushy upsell by an agent. (Though if it's your first time using the kiosk, I suggest going through a little slowly to make sure you don't accidentally choose an option you don't want. Then subsequent rentals go much faster)

Last month there was an exodus from the waiting line to the kiosks when people saw me stroll up and start using one of the ignored-up-o-that-point terminals. :)

-Rob
 

Greg34

New Member
The last time dollar upgraded me it was from a Stratus to a Jeep Liberty. I told them that would be fine if they plan on filling the tank for me when I turn it in. The rental agent immediatly started with the pre-buy fuel and I told him that sound's like a great plan but I want it for free. we argued but he did give it to me for free.
 

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