How Alamo (Almost) Ruined My Vacation

The buses don't run during Semana Santa. The whole country takes a vacation. If we didn't have to meet two groups of people at the airport during the holiday, this would not have been a problem. But, because Regina's friends were arriving on Thursday and Friday, we didn't have much of a choice except to rent a car. SO . . . we reserved a car on the Alamo website. Then we called to confirm our reservation. Things we are all good until we showed up at the airport and the Alamo office was closed (CLOSED!). Frantic, we asked the security guard whether the office was closed for good or if the person was coming back. We thought it was a good sign when he gave us the woman's phone number, but she was the most unhelpful person ever. She said that she had run out of cars, so she went home. Apparently "reservation" in Honduras means, first come first serve. The next 30 minutes or so we went for car company to car company to see if they had any cars. It was semana santa. No one did. There were vans, buses, and SUVs, all of which were 3 to 4 times the cost of the car we reserved (and outside of our budget). We called the 1-800 number and after five people transferred me from one operator to the next, I got hung up on. We must have looked pretty pathetic because another woman, who had apparently "reserved" a car in Honduras before, told us that she had reserved several cars in case there were no cars when she got there. One of the company's had actually "reserved" the car for her, but her family had decided to upgrade to an SUV. She told us if we wanted it, the car was ours. It was a lucky save, but we still ended up paying double the price of the car we had reserved. I will NEVER patronize that company again.