Aventuras en Melbourne
Part II, Hiring a Car
We wanted to see some of Melbourne’s outlying area and decided to hire a car for a couple of days. We booked online through expedia and secured a two-day rental with Advantage. We took a taxi to the airport and were dropped off at the rental car area; however, there was no Advantage. We hadn’t yet realized that the adventure was actually getting the car, not where we were going. We asked around, but no one had heard of Advantage. An exceptional employee at Thrifty looked up Advantage in the yellow pages, online, and tried to call. We couldn’t get through, but we now had an address and took a second taxi there. The address was for Atlas not Advantage. Strike two and we were left with the only option of returning to the airport where we found an internet access point but could not cancel the rental. We did find a local number and called to try to cancel the reservation but were told that it was use it or lose it so we consented to being picked up by the rental agency’s poor unsuspecting Mark. Close to half an hour later we were back near Atlas rental at Red Spot, the Australian contracting partner for Advantage. Mark had listened to us recount our morning’s adventures down to the last detail, including how we had no pen and had to write the rental agency number with lipstick. Poor Mark was ready to head for the pub once he’d finished with us and readily admitted it. Keys and map in hand, we hopped into the car and headed to wine country.