Beware Dollar at Tampa Airport

[Y]

After arriving at Tampa with no delays on either of our flights we arrived at the Dollar car hire pick up desk only to be told there were no cars and we would have to wait a while!
Well after 90 minutes despite having a prepaid voucher, (From this site) we were still waiting along with at least 10 other british families.
Despite several protests we were told we couldn't have a refund because we had prepaid and for the same reason they couldn't transfer us to another car hire company.
The duty manager spoke to us on the phone but refused to come down to the desk and just kept saying we should be patientas they were cleaning the cars.
To cut a long story short we finally received our 7 seater 3 hours after arriving at the desk and after refusing a smaller inferior car.
Their parting comment was that we were lucky not to be at Orlando as it was even worse there!
Were we just unlucky in being there the week before the Easter break or is this a common occurrence.
They also wanted us at one stage to pay extra to be upgraded to a larger 7 seater[msnmad].

[floridadreamvilla.co.uk]

You were just very unlucky by the sound of it - we have never had a problem at all with Dollar, at Tampa, Orlando or Sanford.

[Ray&Sarah]

Sounds as though you were really unlucky, we have been at peak times and always hire through Dollar. We have never had to wait, other than in the pick-up queue.

[zerotone]

Yvonne - What day did you arrive? We arrived at Sanford on the 1st April and it took only a few minutes to receive our Dollar hire car. They did try very hard to get us to upgrade (they do this every time) but we stuck to our guns and were away minutes later.

Jane

[huckleberry house]

We had similar problems with Alamo at Miami,I vowed never to use them again as their attitude stank,didnt book from this site.

Lesley

[Rhosyn]

We arrived in Orlando mco via Chicago April 3rd at 10.00 pm only to find Dollar did not have any cars only compact which was ok for us as there was only 2 adults 2 teens. Tired after the flight we excepted this had a refund and returned the car empty. But there were familles their that had booked 7, 8 seater vans two familles Manager refused to speak to any of the passengers from the flight and were told that it was either conpact or nothing else until the following day and they would have to return to the airport to pick the van up. Spoke to some of the familles on our return journey and some of them did not have the correct van for 3 days after they arrived. Not funny as one of the familles only had one driver with 4 children. This spoilt their holiday as they had saved for 5 years to take the family on a holiday of a life time. [msnscared][msnscared][msnscared]

[Robert5988]

My son took nearly 3 hours to get Dollar car at Terminal B Orlando on 03 April. He did get much bigger car than he had paid for though - without charge.

Terminal A seldom seems to have the same problem and doesn't get several Jumbo from Europe mainly arriving mid afternoon

[chrisj]

Thats bad, I assume everyone has pre-booked and so they know how many cars they should need and
theres no excuse for anyones car being there

I would go mad if that happened to us as its just bad planning on Dollars part

[Rhosyn]

Yes Chris eveyone had pre-booked and yes their were a lot of raised voices,when we arrived at the desk one of the dollar reps was outside having a cig two only on the desk it took us half an hour and we were sixth in line, as I got the cases and hubby went to the desk makes life easier, This is the first time into mco Sandford was much better.When we went into the carpark to pick up ours no vans or any sort of larger cars in sight.

[chrisj]

Beryl

That isnt acceptable, they then knew what cars had been hired and so it was down to them
to get them ready. I would have expected them to do more to their paying customers. I
would have got my mum to sort them out, and boy when she starts

Sorry to hear you had a bad time