Good Bye Hertz

Do you want to know how to lose a customer in less than an hour? Hertz lost me and as I stood at the counter waiting my turn I watched and listened as another customer was left stranded. It did not give me a good feeling. I should have listened to my gut. By now I’d been up and awake for 12 hours. I’d just done a marathon through the Miami Airport and was rapidly melting from the exertion. And now I was standing in line while the Hertz rep turned away the customer in front of me.

So Why Hertz This Time?

Hertz has never been my favorite car rental agency. I usually only use them as a last resort. They always seem to be overpriced. You can get a better deal with another rental agency and I have. I use Enterprise regularly and I’ve used Thrifty and Dollar. I used Payless once. Bad experience and won’t use them again. Hertz has worked deals with my Timeshare so they encourage us owners to use them. It still didn’t save me any money. So why did I reserve a car with them this time? I booked the car when I reserved my flight and Hertz was the only option on the Delta website.

It’s My Turn

The customer service rep motioned me forward and I dragged my wilting , dripping body to the counter. I handed over my reservation form, license and credit card. My experience was totally different from the poor guy ahead of me. My rep was super nice and got me through the verification process in minutes. She passed me my contract and a map and directed me to the 3rd level. Once on level 3 I was told to pick any car in Zone 2. Sounds good. I breathed a sign of relief, boarded the elevator and headed to level 3.

So what went wrong?

On level 3  I was looking at all those lovely cars in Zone 1 and Zone 3 but Zone 2 only had 2 cars. Big choice. One was a humongous combination of SUV and minivan, certainly not a compact. I didn’t even recognize the make. The other car was a little red number. Cute but written in soap across the windshield was ” no inspection sticker”.  So no cars and no attendant to help. Its all self serve. By now I was very much afraid I was going to have to drag my luggage back to the counter again when I spotted a Hertz employee.

No Speak English

Turns out that the friendly and willing employee had one problem with me. He did not speak English and I did not speak Spanish. What we had here was a failure to communicate. Finally another customer stopped and acted as translator. After much back and forth I was told to wait there. The other customer left, the employee left and I was left to stew. I was just about to give up when Mr. employee returned with a Nissan Sentra.

Bye Bye Hertz

Getting on the road I needed was easier than escaping the Hertz section of the parking garage. Once on the road I breathed a sign of relief. Only 70 miles to my destination. Note to self: Put Hertz on the bottom of the list of  rental car agencies. This rental is costing me close to $900 for a week. That seems a little excessive to me. A nice RAV 4 or Chevy Equinox would be more in line. I’ve rented both from other agencies for less than $500.00 with less aggravation. And that’s how Hertz lost me as a customer in less than 1 hour.