Something similar happened to me once. I rented a car with Alamo through Expedia at Chicago ORD, pick up around 11:30 pm. My flight was a bit late, and when I got there the Alamo counter was closed. It turned out they closed at midnight. It was impossible to pick up a car from Alamo.

I called Expedia. They told me to rent a car from Hertz and pay for it, they'd pay for it. When I called Expedia on subsequent days nobody knew anything about this conversation. They refused to pay for my rental, and said that if I could prove that Alamo was closed they would refund the original rental. Of course it would be a long and tedious process.

It wasn't worth my time, so I forgot about it. Never used Expedia again.