Just wanted to share our recent completely nightmarish car hire experience with Expedia UK & Alamo UK & USA. We recently spent 18 days in Fort Myers driving a car that we were unsure was insured, despite having bought & paid for all the usual & the higher level insurance cover from Expedia when we ordered the car in the UK prior to our trip. When we got to the hire desk at the airport, Alamo USA refused to honour the insurances we had bought – they said it wasn’t showing on their (computer) system and wouldn’t budge, despite being shown the Expedia contract that clearly listed them. Our Alamo contract that we carried with us whilst driving around clearly stated ‘no insurance’ – I hate to think of the legal mess that we would have had to deal with had we had a problem.

We phoned & emailed Expedia & Alamo every day from Florida, but they didn’t sort this out in all the time we were there. In fact we only got Expedia’s full explanation almost a month after we got back. They claim that the problem was an internal one between Expedia UK, who are 100% clear that we did have insurance, and Alamo USA who were 100% clear that we didn't have any insurance through them - with involvement from Alamo UK who are piggy-in-the-middle of this relationship.

What's the result? We have a paltry £75 of Expedia vouchers for our trouble, with the usual accompanying statement that they deny any liability. Expedia have washed their hands of the whole situation - it seems not to have been their problem that they acted as the broker in this situation and we (their client) didn’t get what we paid for. There is a potential court case in the offing & a complaint has gone in to the insurance regulator. We contend that it is Expedia’s problem, and have legal opinion that this is the case.

Obviously we will NEVER hire through Expedia again. But we have a broader concern given what we know now about why the problem happened. It could potentially happen with any car hired through a broker - which is what I would guess most of us & our guests do every time we hire in the US. We don't hire directly from Alamo, National etc because they charge hugely more.

Any thoughts / solutions welcome. We’re off again in November and have hired a car through another broker - we have our fingers & toes very firmly crossed.