Alamo Rent a Car


Alamo Rent a Car is a car rental agency in the United States. Based in Clayton, Missouri, it has branches across North America, South America, Africa, Europe, Asia, Australia
and Oceania.

History

Alamo was founded in Florida in 1974. In 1996, Alamo was acquired by Republic Industries. AutoNation spun off its car rental properties as ANC Rental in 2000. ANC filed for bankruptcy a year later; its properties were sold to Vanguard Automotive Group in 2003. In 2005, Alamo introduced an online check-in system that allowed customers to submit registration information prior to arrival to bypass counter check-in. In 2007, Alamo’s parent company Vanguard was acquired by Enterprise Holdings, operator of the largest rental car company in North America, which operates the Alamo Rent A Car, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, and National Car Rental brands.

Complaints and criticism

Alamo Rent a Car has been criticized for not providing adequate access to/from terminal buildings to rental car lot for wheelchair users; according to the United States Department of Justice, Alamo was the subject of many such complaints; Alamo reached a settlement with the government regarding the complaints filed by the Department of Justice. There was a report in The Washington Post about problems with customers returning cars after hours; in one instance, a customer returned an undamaged car after hours, but Alamo claimed that it had been rear-ended and demanded an additional $785. Alamo dropped the claim after the renter threatened to take them to court. A report in the Denver Post described a snowbound passenger who was charged $950 per day by Alamo around Christmas time in an instance of apparent price gouging. A report in USA Today suggested that increases in rental car rates, which averaged 4% in 2013, were leading many rental car users to switch to taking taxis instead. Two automobile safety advocacy groups petitioned the Federal Trade Commission in 2010 to bar Enterprise Holdings, the parent company of Alamo, from renting out recalled vehicles that had not been fixed. Alamo was criticized in The New York Times for failing to provide information about insurance rates for its rental cars on its website.