Alamo Car Rental Goes Rogue In Fairbanks: Banned Travel On Glenn, Rich, and Alcan Highways

Fairbanks Alamo Car Rental Banned Cars This Summer On The Glenn, Richardson & Alcan Highways  David and Gillian Bell, getting ready to g...


Fairbanks Alamo Car Rental Banned Cars This Summer On The Glenn, Richardson & Alcan Highways 

David and Gillian Bell, getting ready to go back to England at Fairbanks International.
(Photo, Country Journal) 

The Car Rental Company Claimed East Alaska’s Paved Roads Are 
“Not As Maintained As We Want” 

The Matanuska Glacier
(Photo, Country Journal) 

SPECIAL REPORT FROM THE 
COPPER RIVER COUNTRY JOURNAL 

Here, unfortunately, is a story we wish we didn’t have to talk about. But it’s important, and reveals confusion at the national car rental chain, Alamo, which provides rental cars to visitors from all over the world. 

Fairbanks Alamo Car Rental is having a damaging effect on tourists’ plans, and the businesses of Eastern Alaska – by saying the paved Glenn, Richardson & Alcan are not standard, safe roads for Alamo cars.



Richardson Highway. (Photo, Country Journal)

Fairbanks Alamo told us you can’t go south of Delta Junction in an Alamo car – on either the Alcan or Richardson Highways. They also wouldn’t let you drive the Glenn Highway from Palmer to Glennallen, the Tok Cutoff, or the Richardson to Valdez. 

We found this out from Gillian and David Bell. We ran into the Bells in the lobby of Golden North Inn in Fairbanks. They were wrapping up their road trip and were headed to the airport, to turn in their Alamo car. They’ve been to Alaska many times. They first came to Alaska 30 years ago, in 1994. They love Alaska. They’re real independent travelers. 

The Bells discuss their travels at Golden North Inn in Fairbanks. 
(Photo, Copper River Country Journal) 

They told us they were thrilled with their trip. Except for one thing. They had been banned, by Alamo, from driving any of the paved roads of Eastern Alaska, and had to cancel their lodging reservations.

They’d wanted to go to the Matanuska Glacier on the Glenn Highway, to check out what was happening there with the ice. But that was forbidden by Alamo in Fairbanks. 

Thirty years ago, the Bells had come to Alaska over the Alcan, and stayed at Young’s Motel in Tok. This year, they’d planned – from their home back in northern England – to replay their original journey, as kind of an anniversary celebration of their inital trip. 

Young's Motel website in Tok. 

They'd booked three nights at Young’s Motel, which is run by Fast Eddy’s. Their plans were to use Tok as a home base, and fan out to see Chicken, which is on a paved highway, and to explore the area around Tok. 

But when they arrived in Fairbanks to pick up their car, Alamo told them they could not legally drive an Alamo car to Tok. They had paid for their rental before the trip and felt they couldn’t back out of Alamo. Now they couldn’t go to Valdez, or Chistochina, or Gakona. They couldn’t go to Copper Center, or Worthington Glacier. They couldn’t go to Lake Louise, or Chitina, or the Glenn Highway. They couldn’t go to Sheep Mountain or Matanuska Glacier. 

“We had to telephone the motel in Tok, and cancel our reservations for three nights,” Gillian told us. “The lady on the phone couldn’t believe why we had to cancel. Then we had to come up with a new plan.” 

We have no desire to hurt Alamo, but this was a big deal. We needed to double-check this story before releasing it.

To verify what the couple had heard was true, we drove to the Fairbanks Airport, to get double confirmation. We ran into the Bells, waiting for their plane. We went to the service desk, and this is what they told us: 

FAIRBANKS ALAMO: 
“You can go to Delta Junction. Anything past that is a no. You can’t go to Tok. Can’t go to Valdez. No, you can’t go on the Glenn Highway. You can’t go on the Richardson. You can’t go to Anchorage on the Glenn. You can’t go on the Edgerton, the Steese, the McCarthy Road, to Savage River, or Nabesna…

"It damages the vehicles. The roads are not as maintained as we want.” 

When we reached Anchorage again, we went over to the Alamo desk at Anchorage International. To our relief (and confusion) we found the Anchorage Alamo clerk had never heard of this ban, and gave us the standard line – that unpaved roads such as the Denali, McCarthy Road, and Dalton Highway are not allowed, but others are: 

ANCHORAGE ALAMO:
“Can you drive on the Glenn and Richardson Highways in an Alamo car?”
“I think that should be fine. They’re not on the list.”

Then why would Fairbanks Alamo say it was forbidden?
“That’s a good question.”

We wanted a third opinion from Alamo, from a non-Alaska-based source.

We decided to call the national Reservation Line on the phone. What they told us about the official rules of vehicle use on Alaska roads was that there were no restrictions on Alamo cars in Alaska – even for unpaved roads. 

Here’s a transcript of our phone conversation:

ALAMO PHONE RESERVATION LINE:
"Can you drive an Alamo car on any road in Alaska?"
"Yes Ma’am"

"What about dirt roads?"
"You can drive it anywhere in Alaska."

"Including dirt roads?"
"Yes Ma’am."

The lesson to us is that car rentals in Alaska can have unchecked power over access to hundreds of businesses engaged in Alaskan tourism in dozens of towns and destination points across the state. 

The tourism community has to work with the car rentals to prevent them from damaging Alaska tourism.





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