Alamo Rent A Car — Local services in New York

The People were friendly, but the car was not as expected. They offered us a Toyota 4Runner, which was really used. The seats were dirty, the car had several scratches. It has run 43.000 miles . So it was not as new as I used to with rental cars. Another car of the same class was not available. So we need to take an upgrade to get a better car, a BMW X3 instead of the Ford Edge Class, that we have booked. But the worst thing is, that they did not put my wife on the contract as a second driver, which I have paid for In my german contract. They told me it is not necessary, she can drive. But later by checking my contract and after consulting my german agent, I found out that it is better to have my wife in the contract because of insurance facts. At Alamo in Richmond I asked for putting my wife on the contract as a second driver. They told me as well that it is not necessary by state law, because we are legally married. To put her on the contract will not be free of charge. So I went away. Later consulting again my german agency they advised me again to put her on the contract due to the insurance policies. They have to do it free if charge due to my german contract. I hope to find another Alamo Station on my trip. Otherwise my wife can't drive the car.

Addendum: Today I got help at Alamo at Wilmington International Airport. The Lady at the counter were very friendly and helpful. She put my wife's name on the contract as additional driver without hesitating and free of charge. That was a real good service. Thank you!

It might be a state law that a spouse is automatically allowed as an additional driver, but my german car rental agency informed me, that it is necessary to write her name in the contract to have the full insurances. Maybe it is because of the additional insurances that I have got from my german contractor. So next time please put the name of the spouse automatically in the contract. That is not a big deal, especially the second driver was already included in my contract.

So I gave one point more, because the company Alamo helped solve...

Overall ok. Easy pick-up and drop-off. The location is very small and there is no separate entrance for people. At this location you cannot select which car you get. Do take in account for extra delays because of Manhattan when returning the car.

Do not get surprise when asked about E-ZPASS. Decide in advance if you think you needed an E-Zpass, as it costs extra $20 + the respective tolls. Driving out of NYC seems to be free but returning to NYC is $15, cash only. I avoided other tolls altogether with Google Maps so I survived without E-Zpass.

I was offered an GPS device, even though I did not book one. When returning the car, the same happened to somebody else.

The car had almost no windshield washer fluid so I had to buy some. Oil level was ok, but needed to be changed. Tank was not full. There are no gas stations...

We reserved a car over 24 hours in advance but received an email just a few hours before the selected pick up time, saying that we supposedly had canceled the reservation - not true, no explanation. We called their customer service line and then the direct location. Extremely rude service on the telephone. Still no explanation was given but we were told to rebook the reservation. After doing so, we got another email over an hour later stating that all cars were booked for the day and Alamo would not be able to provide a car for us. Honestly, what's so hard about update your order system to reflect your current inventory levels? Definitely would not recommend...