Hotwire.com Got screwed 2 out of 3 times and almost ruined wedding, Internet
The first time they gave me a company that didn't accept debit cards for deposits. I called, they cancelled the reservation and completely ruined my whole trip, since I didn't have a car anymore... The second time I booked with them and their hot deal, I saw a filter that made only rental car companies that allow debit card deposits to come up. That trip was okay.
This last time I wanted to rent a car to drive to our wedding on the beach. I went to book the reservation, but could not find that filter. I looked all over, went back, tried every different approach I could to find that filter. I assumed that maybe it was a different site afterall (it's not like hotwire is the only site I price) or maybe it was on the next page, one more click. Next thing I know, I'm booked with a company that only accepts credit cards.
I immediately email them. Their response is that there is a filter for that, sorry for your luck. I went back and did the entire process again, getting a screen shot of every page. I replied to the email asking them to show me where this filter is. Their response was to say they understand I'm having trouble finding the filter, here's step-by-step how to get to it. That doesn't do me a lot of good now.
I replied that, according to the screen shot, that filter never appeared while I was trying to book a rental car, I shouldn't have to go find a hidden screen with the filter. Their response was that after looking at the screen shots, it appears that I slected from the dropdown menu that i wanted to pick up my car at "Dallas Lovefield Airport Area" (a convenient and known location for me) instead of "City of Dallas Area". And since this had happened with me before, they won't help me.
My response: why wouldn't I have the option of debit card deposits just because I'm picking it up at the airport? How am I supposed to know that they are mutually exclusive? And if this happened before, why dont you make the filter come up when it's supposed to?
Needless to say, it doesn't look good.