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There really is no reason picking up a rental needs to be as time consuming as it is (could be dropped off like an Uber near to the station) and I’m amazed ther

There really is no reason picking up a rental needs to be as time consuming as it is (could be dropped off like an Uber near to the station) and I’m amazed there isn’t a version of Uber that combines short hops from public transport somewhere timed for when the train arrives. These problems are actually opportunities in my opinion, I’m surprised Uber isn’t onto them...

sct202 7y ago
If you have status with the rental car companies, a lot of them have express pickup where you just walk up to a designated spot number that's listed in the app and drive away. I have no idea why they go thru the whole charade of retyping everything on the computer at the rental car location if you don't have status, when they obviously know how to save data for other people.
- jedberg 7y ago
  > I have no idea why they go thru the whole charade of retyping everything on the computer at the rental car location if you don't have status It's a security feature. It's more secure for them to retype everything then to try and verify that everything you typed matches the ID you put in front of them. When you have status they've already done all that once and they trust you because you've successfully rented from them before. Without status, they have no reason to trust you, so they have to verify everything. It's a risk/reward trade off for them.
yellowapple 7y ago
If you place the reservation ahead-of-time, it doesn't take that long at the desk (besides the line, if there is one). Sure, it could be faster, but I've rented plenty of cars from a lot of different companies (with City Rent-A-Car being my preference in SF, and Enterprise everywhere else) and it's pretty tolerable. Hell, my first ever car rental (to go from DC to Harrisburg because that leg of my flight got cancelled) was a walk-in with Hertz, and the slowest part was picking out a car. Re: getting to the car in the first place, just about every airport I've been to has a bunch of rental agencies onsite (either walkable or via a shuttle bus), and I suspect HSR stations would be no different.

sct202 7y ago

If you have status with the rental car companies, a lot of them have express pickup where you just walk up to a designated spot number that's listed in the app and drive away. I have no idea why they go thru the whole charade of retyping everything on the computer at the rental car location if you don't have status, when they obviously know how to save data for other people.

jedberg 7y ago
> I have no idea why they go thru the whole charade of retyping everything on the computer at the rental car location if you don't have status It's a security feature. It's more secure for them to retype everything then to try and verify that everything you typed matches the ID you put in front of them. When you have status they've already done all that once and they trust you because you've successfully rented from them before. Without status, they have no reason to trust you, so they have to verify everything. It's a risk/reward trade off for them.

yellowapple 7y ago

If you place the reservation ahead-of-time, it doesn't take that long at the desk (besides the line, if there is one). Sure, it could be faster, but I've rented plenty of cars from a lot of different companies (with City Rent-A-Car being my preference in SF, and Enterprise everywhere else) and it's pretty tolerable. Hell, my first ever car rental (to go from DC to Harrisburg because that leg of my flight got cancelled) was a walk-in with Hertz, and the slowest part was picking out a car. Re: getting to the car in the first place, just about every airport I've been to has a bunch of rental agencies onsite (either walkable or via a shuttle bus), and I suspect HSR stations would be no different.