Beware of Enterprise car rental

[Kirsty40]

I recently booked a car rental and toddler seat with Enterprise for a trip to France with hubby and DS. Upon arrival, we were told that the car was available, but the toddler seat was not, and were instead handed a child booster seat which DS is at least 10 lbs too light for. When we complained, we were told basically that is all there is, take it or leave it. As it was a small regional French airport and that was the only car rental desk open, we had to take the car and I had to drive to the nearest supermarket (hubby is a non driver), to purchase the correct car seat for 138 euros.

I have complained to Enterprise, but have been told that it is in their small print that car seats, even when booked, are still only subject to availability.

This would have been crap enough without the trip being to visit my mum who is in the end stages of ALS.

Bottom line, if you are thinking of booking with Enterprise, book with someone else as it seems child safety is not a huge priority for them.

If you had read the small print you would have known it was subject to availability, and at a small regional French airport they might not have them.

I also suspect that all car hire companies will have exactly the same small print. I have used Enterprise frequently and never has a problem but then I have never booked a car seat, as I have one I leave at my Dads.

I am sorry that your trip was hard and about your Mum.

We took our own car seats when renting cars as do not trust hire car companies to have something suitable. You would have to go and buy one which is a complete hassle, I agree.

We had the same problem although I can't remember which rental companies they were.

We needed an infant car seat for 5 month old DD in Germany. DH had checked the day before that it would be available when we arrived, and in fact it was a 3 hour wait and eventually they had to borrow one from another rental company in the airport. The car was supposed to be an automatic, too, and wasn't.

In Hungary they looked at us like we were mad when we said we needed a rear facing seat for DD who at that time was 6 months old.

I am not keen on taking car seats on planes as I have seen how they treat the hold baggage!

So sorry about your mum, OP.

DP has used them regularly over the last year and never had any problems. Apparently they treat their min wage staff like shit though.

I don't think this is exclusive to enterprise. I've had this with other companies so take my own now.

We usually use Avis, and have never had a problem with availability and they even fit it in the car too, but as it was short notice all their automatic cars were unavailable, so we went with Enterprise.

Marcopront there was no small print as it was booked online. I have even gone back online and rebooked up until payment to see if there was something I missed, but still no small print. Maybe it is on the rental document they give you at the airport, by which time it is too late.

As others have said, I did not want to take a car seat with us as after it has been thrown around by the baggage people it would be useless anyway.

My basic point was that when you turn up at a rural airport, and the car seat that you have had confirmed as booked with the car rental company is not available, the whole rental is useless as car seats are not optional. The rental company obviously knew they were out of seats, and also knew where the supermarket was too. They should have bought more themselves.

If there was no small print when you booked, then you need to complain again.

This is really common, we had exactly the same problem at Boston Logan airport with Hertz. They were equally shit about it.