"Can you send the refund back to the same card I used for the deposit?" This was one of the messages I sent them after my trip. At that time I was already back in Singapore for a few days, but my mind was still replaying the night I picked up the car in Vienna. I booked the car on QEEQ. I chose a BMW X5 from Sixt, automatic, four doors, five seats. On April 26 around 8 pm, I was alone with my suitcase, lining up at the Sixt counter in Vienna. I felt pretty excited because it was my first time driving this kind of big car in Europe. When it was my turn, the counter staff told me the car for me was not an X5 but another SUV. I was a bit confused. I checked the car and the condition first and then I just drove away, but in my heart I felt like I might have been downgraded. The real trouble started around April 30 when I was back at the hotel and finally had time to compare the car model and prices. I felt something was not right, so I contacted customer service and explained what happened. I thought it would be very messy, but they arranged one person to follow my case. After that it was almost always the same person talking to me. One time I was sitting in a small cafe in Vienna. It was raining outside and I checked my emails on my phone. They asked me if I could send photos of the rental agreement and the final invoice. I sat there with my drink, looking for the papers, taking photos and sending them. It felt a bit like doing homework, but it was okay because the person following my case told me clearly what they needed. I just followed the steps. A few days passed and I was getting ready to return the car. On around May 3 in the evening, I drove the car back to the Vienna return point, close to 8 pm. The staff checked the car quickly and said everything was fine. I felt that the rental part was finished, but the downgrade question was still open, so I sent another message to ask for an update. Later they told me they had checked with Sixt and were told the two cars were similar. I did not really accept that. I am just a normal traveler and I do not understand their car group system. I shared my feelings with customer service. They did not brush me off. They checked the prices and showed that there was a difference and then kept talking to the rental company to fight for the price gap. After some days I got a message saying they had managed to get a partial refund for me. I was in my office in Singapore, almost off work, when I saw it. I felt a small surprise and thought all the emails and chats before were not wasted. Then it moved to the refund method. For a while, my chat history was full of questions about which card to use and if I needed to give a bank account. I thought I would need to provide many bank details and I felt a bit tired of it. So I asked if they could just send it back to the credit card I used for the deposit at the counter. That would be the easiest for me. What made me feel calm was that the same person kept following my case. It was not changing from one agent to another. Every time I came back and asked again, it was still the same person and they already knew my story. They then checked with the rental company and came back to ask me to confirm my name, email and country. I answered them while I was on the subway, on my sofa at home and even when I was lining up to buy lunch. I always felt that someone was still watching this case for me. Not long after that, they told me the rental company had agreed to refund to the card used on this booking, and asked me to watch my statement. I asked again because I was afraid I mixed up the cards. The staff even checked my contract and told me which card it was by the first and last numbers. At that moment I felt quite safe. The whole thing took some time, but at least someone was holding my hand through it and I was not left alone in the middle. When I look back now, I remember the trip itself, but I also remember this after sales experience. I was traveling alone and getting a different car model and price is not a huge disaster, but it is annoying. If nobody helped me talk to the rental company, I would probably give up that one hundred plus euro difference. The process was not very fast, but having one person follow my problem from start to finish made me feel taken care of and not like a small order that could be easily forgotten. For someone who travels alone like me, that feeling matters quite a lot.
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