Warning - Hiring a car in Spain (Malaga) with Alamo

[aintnomountainhighenough]

I just wanted to warn Mumsnetters to be careful when choosing car hire. We recently booked and paid for car hire through Alamo. Upon arriving at Malaga airport we went to the National Car Hire desk (who represent Alamo) only to be told that they didn't have any cars left for us. Their attitude was appalling to say the least and we were forced to hire and pay for a car from another company. We are awaiting a satisfactory response from Alamo and will be taking this further.

I am posting this not only because this happened to us but because there were at least 2 other parties that this happened to and we spoke to people when were on holiday who had been let down at the airport. I would urge you to call your rental company before you go toc confirm a car will be available.

I have just been reading on another forum that there is a severe shortage of hire cars in Spain/Majorca etc and that prices have absolutely shot up.

I wondered why the price of a hire car had gone up so much. On a different note.. What was the swine flu situation like in Spain?

I would still be aware and call ahead to confirm your car. Also if you find they don't have a car when you get there you need to get something in writing from the desk there to say you havent taken a car or they will try and claim you got a car and not give you a refund!

When we were there we didn't see any info on swine flu, even at Malaga everything seemed pretty normal. Having said that we don't speak Spanish so there could have been stuff on the news but we wouldn't have understood it!

Thanks, did wonder whether airports would be screening people for fever.

The larger companies are apparently cancelling bookings which were made at lower prices earlier in the year, to free up cars to rent out now at 2 or 3 times the price.

There is an article on the car shortage in Malaga here:

www.free-press-release.com/news/200907/1248539154.html