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Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation? Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars. Jerry: But the reservation keeps t

Jerry: I don't understand. Do you have my reservation? Rental Car Agent: We have your reservation, we just ran out of cars. Jerry: But the reservation keeps the car here. That's why you have the reservation. Rental Car Agent: I think I know why we have reservations. Jerry: I don't think you do. You see, you know how to take the reservation, you just don't know how to hold the reservation. And that's really the most important part of the reservation: the holding. Anybody can just take them.

bayouborne 5y ago
U-Haul does this too, maybe it's sector-wide. Anecdotally, they appear to have no equipment reserve. If, at crunch time at the end of the month, a rental customer does not return the vehicle at a scheduled time then that means a previously issued 'reservation' isn't going to be honored, at least not at that place and time. They'll try to upgrade to a larger truck if available, or try to send you 50 miles away chasing another truck of the same size (which often isn't actually there) or they'll try to incent you via a heavy discount to rent the same truck 1-2 days later when it's finally available - just know that a reservation is an entirely notional construct to them.
- AaronM 5y ago
  How would you build a better system in an industry with tight margins? They are at the whim of the person with the vehicle to return it on time.
  - addicted 5y ago
    Outside of regulation which requires companies to actually hold the reservations, and keep a certain number of reserve vehicles on standby it's not gonna happen because customers will not pay the increased prices that such a company would need to charge. Effectively, the entire system is stuck in a local maximum that is much lower than the global maximum. One possibility is to simply charge an optional premium price to actually hold a reservation, but I suspect the premium would probably be too high for anyone to really take up and would simply lead to a lot of bad press.

bayouborne 5y ago

U-Haul does this too, maybe it's sector-wide. Anecdotally, they appear to have no equipment reserve. If, at crunch time at the end of the month, a rental customer does not return the vehicle at a scheduled time then that means a previously issued 'reservation' isn't going to be honored, at least not at that place and time. They'll try to upgrade to a larger truck if available, or try to send you 50 miles away chasing another truck of the same size (which often isn't actually there) or they'll try to incent you via a heavy discount to rent the same truck 1-2 days later when it's finally available - just know that a reservation is an entirely notional construct to them.

AaronM 5y ago
How would you build a better system in an industry with tight margins? They are at the whim of the person with the vehicle to return it on time.
- addicted 5y ago
  Outside of regulation which requires companies to actually hold the reservations, and keep a certain number of reserve vehicles on standby it's not gonna happen because customers will not pay the increased prices that such a company would need to charge. Effectively, the entire system is stuck in a local maximum that is much lower than the global maximum. One possibility is to simply charge an optional premium price to actually hold a reservation, but I suspect the premium would probably be too high for anyone to really take up and would simply lead to a lot of bad press.