When we left our car unlocked, some rudesbys decided to smoke in the car and leave butts in the ashtrays! So rude and entitled!
@HImom -read my post #47 if you want a positive rental experience.
The happiest car rental story we had was from Hertz, and it was on our Honeymoon. We had flown in to Hawaii, and like many newlyweds do, we were wearing matching personalized T-shirts with our names and our wedding date. SIL had made them for us to wear on the plane in hopes that we could get a seat upgrade - it worked for the first flight of our trip (as far as LA), but after connecting, we were stuck in coach for the final leg. We were exhausted when we arrived at the Hertz counter and had totally forgotten we were wearing the identifying shirts, but instead of the compact we reserved, we were upgraded to a midsize convertible, at the same price as our compact. I am sure the Lihue airport sees newlyweds all day long, every day, and I am sure they can’t upgrade most of them, but we will never forget how special they made us feel.
I just returned from my annual Arizona trip and as usual was very happy with my car rental experience. Recently I have rented from Costco -Budget, but for this trip (expensive spring training season) Hertz in my usual off airport location with the AAA discount was more reasonable. For the most part I reserve economy and then am happy with whatever I am given, which is usually something that does well on the curvy mountain roads. Both locations have given me some very nice cars.
Another happy story. When renting in France last year, I did damage the bottom of the front bumper a bit on the SUV like vehicle they gave me (again for economy prices). It was very large for parking in a French village, and I pulled up too close to a rock, ignoring the appropriate warning beeps for coming too close to objects. I was quoted 1000 Euros for repair. But they fixed it for 250E and refunded the rest to my credit card. My insurance would cover regardless, but I appreciated the refund.
Recently we needed a weekend rental and Enterprise was running a sale. There is one very near us but the inventory is often low and we wanted to have enough room (at one point we were having 5 people , 4 with luggage in the car) so decided to “splurge” and get the intermediate instead of the compact. It cost $2 more a day. W had it from Friday early morning and could have had it til Tuesday morning (but returned it Monday afternoon) and it cost $74 total.Could have saved $8 and hoped for an upgrade, but we were fine with this price. It was a perfectly comfortable relatively new Ford Focus with about $3k miles on it. The only problem is when I went to get gas (the local place only gives 1/4 tank) it somehow took a turn into the donut store and bought a dozen donuts!
Well, I’m pleased to report that after I wrote a rather scathing e-review of Budget Car Rental, I got an IMMEDIATE email response from a manager there. At first the manager said they would of course offer me an upgrade AT NO EXTRA CHARGE if my category of car is unavailable and I replied that was NOT what happened and repeated the sequence of events, including the $100 upcharge without our knowledge or consent.
The manager said that is contrary to Budget policy and he will investigate further.
At least they are attempting to be responsive. He’s also trying to credit me for the coupon they disallowed when I rented my vehicle.
Curious if anyone has rented a car using the “add a car” offered by the airlines on their site? I had already reserved a car through Costco but was offered the same class of car through the same company (Budget I think) for less $$s and extra airline miles when I went in to pick out my seats. I have not reserved this way in the past and wonder if I am at higher risk for problems. I need to be on time for that campus tour!
^^ I rented through Southwest once in Chicago. I had already booked a car elsewhere, then cancelled when I saw that Southwest’s offer was better. I forget who they partnered with, but it was one of the major companies, located at the airport, and we had no problems.
I often book through SW. You go to the car’s site for your receipt and all, but you can pull up your car reservation details with your flight details, which is convenient. You also get extra SW points, if that matters to you.
I’m on a trip now. The SW offer through Hertz was $100 more than the Hotwire price I got. Not worth the 2500 points for $100.
Well, Budget is finally deciding to give me back $25. Not sure how we will get our $ back and am curious.
They say they hope we will use them for our future needs—hmmm if they’re the only car available, we may consider it or just do Lyft. 
Costco says Budget will also be refunding us an additional $40, since it rented us a vehicle small ER than the one we had reserved.
I thanked Costco but told them I was mostly concerned about the bait & switch where they wanted to upcharge us $100 without our knowledge and consent. I said I hoped they’d get Budget to discontinue this unfair and deceptive practice.
Here’s a good rental car story:
DH visited S1 and DIL in North Dakota. He rented a car to get him from the Airport City to S1’s Residence (an hour and a half trip). The plan was that he would drive back to Airport City on Monday, drop the car off at the airport, and fly home. Instead, there was a significant blizzard on Monday, so that didn’t happen. He called Avis and told them he wouldn’t be returning the car on Monday. When he finally returned the car on Tuesday, they didn’t charge him any extra for the additional day. ;
(Now that DH is finally home in CT, he gets to sit through the same blizzard today!)
its helpful to me to now know that the agents are on commission for any upsales. I feel like we’ve been pressured alot over the years; now i’ll handle it a bit differently.
but speaking of smash and grab in SF – visited my sis there 2 weeks ago; she left her wallet on her drivers seat in her car parked outside on a street over night – and it was there in the morning. She was so happy and surprised. She’s had her car broken into in SF and Seattle many many times.
@bgbg4us, I’m curious as to how you’ll handle things differently if agents get commission for upslks and getting folks to buy add-ons. Can you elaborate? Thanks.
I’ve rented cars via Jet Blue add-a-car and gotten good prices.
This is why I always go with Hertz
I just got back from Napa. I reserved a car with Hertz using my USAA discount. Picked up the car at the Sacramento airport. The desk agent was delightful and never once asked about an upgrade or tried to push a different car on us. She told us we had a choice of cars from a designated area in the parking lot. We had one small glitch when we dropped the car back at the airport. The guy at the drop off point in the parking lot could not check us back in - we had to go back inside to the desk. I didn’t even notice, the receipt given to me after we selected our car and departed the parking lot showed that we had a Nissan. However, the car we had been driving was a Ford. I was a little nervous that might be a big issue but the guy inside easily figured out how to correct it. When he confirmed the price, it was about $6 higher than what I’d been quoted by USAA and Hertz the day I picked up the car. Not a big deal, but I did point that out to him and he quickly corrected that as well.
Out of curiousity for a price comparison with my USAA discount, I did try to book a rental thru SWA after getting an email with my flight confirmation. I tried several times by clicking on the link in the email and even went directly to the SWA website. Every single time it had some sort of error code saying that the reward or discount was invalid. I gave up thinking it most likely wouldn’t be any cheaper than my USAA discount.
I just got back from a trip–flying into SFO and budget rent a car. You guys had me nervous. In fact they upgraded, no charge, me to a car I loved (Infinity SUV).
I have rented through SWA as well…a few times…with no issues at all, a decent prices.
One time, I rented it was $11 a day!