What are my rights if my car rental company is overbooked?

As with hotels, car rental companies must deal with last minute cancellations and no shows and also with renters who do not return vehicles at the agreed upon time. To cope with this the vendors deliberately overbook using a complex formula of historical information. Occasionally though, things don’t come out quite right and the car you reserved is not available when you arrive. While there are no legal requirements of the car rental vendor in this situation, good customer service demands that the vendor take certain steps to assist. Often it’s an easy matter of offering a larger vehicle at no additional cost, or sometimes downgrading to a smaller vehicle at a lower rate. As cars are being returned constantly, if no vehicle is available at all the vendor will often ask you to wait briefly while they prepare a newly returned car for your use. Only if that isn’t an option will the vendor look to another rental company to provide you a vehicle.