Car hire firm told me I was a ‘no-show’ so I lost £185
An Australian traveller lost £185 after Holiday Autos and its car hire partner at Heathrow wrongly marked her as a "no-show" when her flight was severely delayed, despite her having prepaid and supplied her flight number as required. Forced to hire a larger, more expensive replacement car on the spot, she was then caught in a runaround, with each company directing her to complain to the other rather than resolving the dispute.
The firms' own terms define a "no-show" as someone who fails to provide a flight number, which she had done, meaning the supplier could have verified her flight status but neither company would accept responsibility when she complained. Holiday Autos cited "operational constraints" for rehiring the car despite the prepayment meaning no financial loss from holding it, and only after the Guardian's Consumer Champions intervened did it agree, as a goodwill gesture, to refund the original rental plus the additional upgrade and insurance costs.
- Prepaid Heathrow car hire was wrongly marked a "no-show" after flight delay.
- Customer paid double for a forced upgrade, denied the original refund.
- Holiday Autos refunded all costs only after Guardian's intervention.
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Australians hiring cars in the UK, like other overseas visitors, often use booking platforms such as Holiday Autos, which act as a middleman between customers and local car hire firms rather than owning vehicles themselves. Under standard industry terms, a "no-show" is someone who fails to give the hire firm their flight number, which allows the firm to check for delays and hold the car accordingly.
This story concerns what happens when that system breaks down: a delayed flight, a customer who had done everything asked of her, and two companies each blaming the other rather than sorting out a refund. It matters because it illustrates a common frustration for travellers, being caught between a booking platform and its local partner, with neither taking responsibility when something goes wrong.
The Guardian's Consumer Champions column, referenced in this piece, is a regular feature in which the newspaper takes up unresolved complaints from readers and presses companies for a resolution, often succeeding where the individual customer could not.