Friday, March 28, 2008

Free Upgrade or Downgrade?

I have to laugh about this because it's so dumb. DH is away on business and signed up to rent a compact Ford Focus. Got a great deal with budget rent a car, and was planning staying an extra day to go snowboarding.

Well last night he got in and was informed that they were out of compact cars. Great he says give him whatever they've got, as long as it's the same price. No problem. They say they'll upgrade him for free. Sound good right?

Well turns out the smallest car they had available was the Ford Edge. Which while, roomy and spacious, is a horrible gas guzzler. I had to laugh because they thought they were doing DH a favor by upgrading him to a larger car. When it turns out he'll end up paying way more in gas. Sigh.

And the lady behind the desk said "You need an SUV to go snowboarding. How did you expect to get there in a Ford Focus? It's only a 4 cylinder." DH didn't bother correcting her that we go boarding all the time in a Focus or Corolla.

Moral of the story? Sometimes a freebie ends up costing you more!

Oh well, at least he got a car. And he tells me that driving such a huge SUV, is sort of very manly. I told him "get your fill, we're not driving a gas guzzler anytime soon."

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

He could always negotiate and say, yea I'll take the bigger car, but I won't pay for the extra gas. I used to work for a rental company, and that would be more than reasonable.

Anonymous said...

We were given an SUV rather than a car on our last trip. Granted we were driving through the mountains in Colorado, but we still couldn't get over how much gas the Suburu Forester sucked up. When I complained about it when we turned the car in, the agent gave us a $50 certificate to use toward our next rental, which we're using tomorrow.

Barb1954

FB @ FabulouslyBroke.com said...

LOL .. "get your fill"...

HP G62-234DX said...

great article. thanks for sharing.