Report: Car Rental from Dollar

I have rented a car from several companies at ZIH airport over the years. Most recently I used Dollar. This is my report.

I reserved the car online for one week, April 20-27, 2012. The size was the third from smallest (intermediate?) The rate quoted online was US$97 for the week. This included the minimum third-party liability of M$50,000 (about C$4,000) and no collision coverage.

The Dollar website said that M$1,000,000 of liability insurance would be either US$12 or US$17 per day. I phoned Dollar who advised me that the rate at the ZIH location was $12/day.

When I arrived at the desk at the airport, the clerk said that someone would drive us in our car over to the off-site Dollar location to complete the paperwork. The car arrived promptly. When we got to the Dollar location, about 30 seconds outside the airport property, I noticed a sign in Spanish advising customers that Profeco is investigating complaint(s) about the business. I don't know whether that referred to Dollar in general in Mexico, but I'm guessing it meant the specific location.

At the counter, there was no dispute about the rate quoted in the reservation. The clerk offered several insurance alternatives of combinations of M$1,000,000 liability, collision, personal insurance, etc. all of which were more than US$17/day which makes sense as they all provided more than the liability insurance.

I told him that I planned to use my Alaska Airline credit card's collision damage waiver for the collision coverage. There was no dispute about that. I have read others' reports of car rental locations insisting that they could not use that.

I told the clerk that Dollar had told me that I could get M$1,000,000 of liability insurance for US$12/day. He confirmed that, but said that the rate was US$11/day that day and charged me the lower rate.

The vehicle was a 2012 Scala (I'm not sure of the make) with less than 5,000 km on it. The vehicle damage inspection was thorough and efficient. I took photos of any damage using the camera on my iPod.

I returned the car on Friday April 27. There were no issues. The price charged was the price quoted in my online reservation and confirmed when we picked up the car. There were no issues of any alleged damages to the car. Both the car pick up and the return process were as smooth and efficient as I have had at car rental locations in Canada.

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