7 ms·

I travel a lot for work and after some setup I have found hertz to be the most efficient. When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket at the line and la

I travel a lot for work and after some setup I have found hertz to be the most efficient. When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket at the line and lack of any urgency from the staff, and another time they canceled my reservation day of without telling me (because they were overbooked) leaving me stranded in an unfamiliar city. But when it works it does work well. I have the board down to a science: shuttle to hertz, look for my name on board, walk to car directly as indicated by board, drive away with the only human interaction being the person scanning the car as I exit.

DebtDeflation 5y ago
>When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket Can confirm that getting off the shuttle, looking up at the Hertz Gold board expecting to see either a parking space number or a section listed by your name, and instead seeing "See Agent" is absolutely rage inducing.
jfrunyon 5y ago
> When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket at the line and lack of any urgency from the staff As a customer, I completely get that feeling. As someone who has worked in auto rental (although for Budget Truck), the reality is usually along the lines of rental clerks making slightly above minimum wage, the entire city getting drastically overbooked by corporate, and customers who were due to return (and counted on for availability) not doing so. They have no urgency because it happens on a regular basis and they're the ones getting screamed at all day because of it even though they have no control over it.
- MomoXenosaga 5y ago
  This is why I always try not to get angry. The employees interfacing with the customers are usually the ones who get paid the least and have no authority to make decisions.
rtpg 5y ago
I really don't understand how overbookings are legal. Does every contract just have some "we can cancel for no reason" clause?
- jjk166 5y ago
  Cars break down, people don't return their cars in time, some of the staff processing cars call out sick, there's a wide variety of reasons your inventory day of might be less than predicted. Either you need to have a lot of extra vehicles sitting idle to make up the deficit or you need to screw over your customers, and car rentals are too low margin for the former to be a viable option.
- simplestats 5y ago
  The flip side is you can choose to extend your rental without giving them any advance notice. And you can cancel your reservation without penalty (at least before these new pay-in-advance deals). Hence they are never quite certiain they will have cars. I have had to wait around for someone to return a car before I could get my rental a few times before. Also I believe one of them (Hertz or maybe Enterprise) told me if I did the pay-in-advance deal they would guarantee a car was there because they'd bring one in from the airport if needed. Some locations have very few cars and can be hit-or-miss.
- FireBeyond 5y ago
  Pretty much. Last time I rented from Hertz, with a corporate card, they wanted to run an "identity verification" on me, which I assume was basically some kind of credit pull. They then told me that because the details from that didn't match the card (billing address, ZIP, etc., I guess), they could not rent to me. "When can I see a refund on my card?" I asked, as I pulled up Uber to go somewhere else (because I was not about to use my personal card, on principle with their behavior). "Sorry, prepaid reservations are nonrefundable". Uhh, no. You're not going to accept a reservation from me using a credit card, and then decide that my photo ID matching that credit card is insufficient, deny me a rental, and deny me a refund. That got sorted out, but took more than one call to Corporate.
  - 5y ago

DebtDeflation 5y ago

>When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket Can confirm that getting off the shuttle, looking up at the Hertz Gold board expecting to see either a parking space number or a section listed by your name, and instead seeing "See Agent" is absolutely rage inducing.

jfrunyon 5y ago

> When they’re not efficient, I want to blow a gasket at the line and lack of any urgency from the staff As a customer, I completely get that feeling. As someone who has worked in auto rental (although for Budget Truck), the reality is usually along the lines of rental clerks making slightly above minimum wage, the entire city getting drastically overbooked by corporate, and customers who were due to return (and counted on for availability) not doing so. They have no urgency because it happens on a regular basis and they're the ones getting screamed at all day because of it even though they have no control over it.

MomoXenosaga 5y ago
This is why I always try not to get angry. The employees interfacing with the customers are usually the ones who get paid the least and have no authority to make decisions.

rtpg 5y ago

I really don't understand how overbookings are legal. Does every contract just have some "we can cancel for no reason" clause?

jjk166 5y ago
Cars break down, people don't return their cars in time, some of the staff processing cars call out sick, there's a wide variety of reasons your inventory day of might be less than predicted. Either you need to have a lot of extra vehicles sitting idle to make up the deficit or you need to screw over your customers, and car rentals are too low margin for the former to be a viable option.
simplestats 5y ago
The flip side is you can choose to extend your rental without giving them any advance notice. And you can cancel your reservation without penalty (at least before these new pay-in-advance deals). Hence they are never quite certiain they will have cars. I have had to wait around for someone to return a car before I could get my rental a few times before. Also I believe one of them (Hertz or maybe Enterprise) told me if I did the pay-in-advance deal they would guarantee a car was there because they'd bring one in from the airport if needed. Some locations have very few cars and can be hit-or-miss.
FireBeyond 5y ago
Pretty much. Last time I rented from Hertz, with a corporate card, they wanted to run an "identity verification" on me, which I assume was basically some kind of credit pull. They then told me that because the details from that didn't match the card (billing address, ZIP, etc., I guess), they could not rent to me. "When can I see a refund on my card?" I asked, as I pulled up Uber to go somewhere else (because I was not about to use my personal card, on principle with their behavior). "Sorry, prepaid reservations are nonrefundable". Uhh, no. You're not going to accept a reservation from me using a credit card, and then decide that my photo ID matching that credit card is insufficient, deny me a rental, and deny me a refund. That got sorted out, but took more than one call to Corporate.
- 5y ago