Sometimes when I travel I keep my expectations low so that I don't feel as upset when I'm disappointed. If you want to save a few bucks, I suggest that you do the same. Sometimes people have different standards of cleanliness: perhaps someone occasionally gives returned rental cars a few swipes with a dust buster, but these cars still stink a little bit like Greyhound buses used to stink before they cleaned up their act a bit. Leaving with the prepaid rental wasn't easy and I don't mean because of the obligatory attempt by a lot attendant to up-sell -- for some reason their version of the bill was $600 than the printout in my hand. Nearly fifteen minutes the problem had been solved, the manager said that someone at the office had entered a single digit in the code incorrectly, but it wasn't very easy to get them to admit that they had made a mistake. Half way through the trip the rear view mirror fell off; Alamo's "assistance" would have taken hours and I ended up using double-sided foam tape to reattach the defective mirror. After turning in the vehicle to the San Diego air port Alamo, to a lot a bit difficult to find -- because the name "National" was on it but "Alamo" was not -- I realized that I had left something behind. Less than an hour and a half later, when I called to inquire about the lost item, I was told that the car was already back on the road -- How, I wondered, could they have possibly properly fixed that rear view mirror and allowed the glue to adequately cure in such a short time period? Did they just skip the clean-up and safety checks or was somebody too lazy or confused to answer my question? Other than that, it was a nice comfy car, smooth ride, and cheap.
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