We have for the last few years used the same company.They are a UK based company where you can select your choice of vehicle, make payment and are then issued with a voucher. I don’t feel the need to name this company just to let customers know to read the small print on the various hire car agent’s websites. In all the times we have collected hire cars we have never encountered this problem before. We had hired from the same company in November and everything was fine.

We originally requested a hatchback vehicle as we wanted to purchase a games table for our villa. The hire company told us this could not be guarenteed as these are very few and far between, not the norm for Florida. We went ahead with the reservation regardless as we definately needed a car and could if need be get our table delivered. My wife selected a car, booked for two people to drive and chose the gold hire option. She paid by credit card and printed the online voucher.

We landed at Orlando MCO and proceeded to collect our vehicle. We gave the agent at the car hire desk our pre paid voucher and both driving licences. He requested a credit card and we gave him the card on which we paid for the booking. He would not accept this credit card and told us it had to be in the name of the person shown as the main driver (myself). He went on to say if we could not produce a card in my name we would not be able to take the car. We explained that we were husband and wife and that I don’t actually possess a credit card. The UK company had accepted the booking on my wife’s card and she was shown as an additional driver. We were then asked to produce a utility bill, he had already seen our passports and driving licences but these were not good enough. Perhaps he just wanted to compare UK gas/electric prices ……who knows. Of course we were not travelling with a UK utility bill (who does) so could not assist him. He went away for about twenty minutes and returned with the manager who told us we were not entitled to take the car we had paid for, however on this occassion they would make an exception and allow us the car. It would have been a long walk to Davenport so we were very happy. There was a lot of additional paperwork and we had to sign various disclaimers but what choice did we have?

Perhaps a lot of readers are already aware that the credit card must be in the name of the hirer but we were not. It did not state this on the UK website and allowed my wife to fill in the online form in my name and make payment in her name. The booking went through fine and we were not contacted asking us to correct the names. As I have previously stated we hired a vehicle from the same company in November using the same details and the same card and did not have a problem. There was no problem with the credit card, just “new hire rules”

Please potential hirers be aware or you could find yourselves stranded at Orlando Airport.