quote:

I guess I have never been completely rebuffed at a car rental agency before. Has anyone else experienced something like this?

There is probably no situation with respect to rental cars that I have not experienced. I did a LOT of business traveling for IBM. Here in the US, Europe, even N. Africa. IBM had a contract with 2 rental companies and Enterprise was not one of them.

Never had a problem with either of them. Only one time it got a little sticky with the local LEO agency. I was returning home from a road trip, night time, through a small town not far from Poughkeepsie. Suddenly, got flagged and pulled over by local cops. Several cars of them. Pulled out of the car, searched, took my IBM ID and driver's license to verify rental contract, etc.

Turns out that the license plate on the back of the car did not match the one on the front of the car. How the hell they discovered that eludes me, as I said, it was night time.

Anyway, they let me go on home after verification etc etc. Rental company was very apologetic about the whole issue. My IBM management was laughing about it. I was too, after a few days.

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Originally posted by Kevmo:
I was traveling with a 2 person crew to do a decent sized shoot (read 3 adults, camera cases, light cases, multiple pelican cases plus personal luggage. I reserved, confirmed and reconfirmed an SUV from Hertz but, you guessed it, we arrived to no SUV, minivan or even hatchback. After showing them the gear pile we had they came up with a solution that I scoffed at initially but I'll be dammed if it didnt work....rolled out of there in a brand new Town Car with about miles on it...the trunk in that car was massive!

You can put three bodies in there!




Link to original video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sczUPdPo70g

I have been working for Enterprise for almost two years now, on the remarketing side of the house. For a while I drove for one of the local branch offices picking up and dropping off customers, and I got to see the daily crap that the customers had to go through! This story is absolutely nothing new or unusual for Enterprise, especially around the holidays, or immediately following a natural disaster.

One thing I will say up front about it though is a LOT of it has to do with the management at the particular branch office you're dealing with! Not all branches are like that; some won't pull that crap, while with others it's quite commonplace. With Enterprise in general though, it is not unusual for them to not be able to supply enough cars to meet all reservation demands during peak times; I am one of the guys who drives those cars to the branches where they're needed (or not, because we ran out), so I see it all the time!

Edit to add: I mentioned natural disasters -- if there is something like tornadoes or hurricanes in an area, you can guarantee there will be a shortage because not only will individuals be trying to rent cars to use while their damaged ones are fixed/replaced, but FEMA always rents a crap-load of cars to put on stand-by, whether they get issued or not, and that ties up hundreds, if not thousands of them! Then, to add insult to injury, all the outlying areas suddenly have a vehicle shortage because they have to transport x-number of vehicles to the affected area to meet the needs!

Flew into Heathrow few years back. Member of Hertz One club. Had reserved a Jag as I was meeting my then GF on my Midtour break out of Iraq. No Jag. Offered me a Volvo. Went out to inspect car, Body Damage, what appeared to be a spare mounted and no prep on the car. Went in, grabbed the counter guy, took him around the car and pointed out the issues. Ended up with a Mercedes. I was polite and diplomatic. Option B was going nuclear. I was prepared to do that. YMMV.

Had to fly into Knoxville a few months ago for work. Last minute deal, only one rental company showed as having something available (Budget).

Plane was delayed in Philly for about 8 hours due to a door seal. Get to Knoxville just before 11pm. Get to the Budget counter and the lady says they don't have anything, I'm too tired to be annoyed and I start thinking about Ubering it to the hotel and out to the site the next day.

Manager lady walks by and says "Just give him that one", underling lady says "Will a 2018 Mustang convertible be a problem?" I said "The only problem is that I'm not going to be here long enough to enjoy it."

They charged me (rather the company) the price of the economy I had booked. So that made up a little for sitting in the airport in Philly for 8+ hours.

You should try the Pierre, SD airport. They only have 1 gate. I booked a car through Avis with 2 car seats. I get to the Avis counter with my 5 & 6 YO and I am told there are no more car seats left. Not just Avis, but there are none to be found at the entire airport! I've never seen an airport smaller than Pierre, SD.

I call Avis customer service and they tell me to drive to the nearest Avis location and get them there. The nearest Avis location was 400 miles away, in another state! After some back and forth they tell me I can go to the closest store (Wal Mart) buy 2 car seats and they will reimburse me for them. I go to Wal Mart and find that cheap booster seats are only around $13 ea.

I bought 2 and threw them out when our visit was over. $26 wasn't worth my time.

I have rented from Avis well over 200 times. However, it was always a large airport (Houston, Newark, Orlando, etc...)

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I've never seen an airport smaller than Pierre, SD.

I've never been to Pierre, but the last time I flew into Westchester, NY you walked down the stairs of the plane, across the tarmac, and into a little building. Fortunately, the building was heated as it was 10 degrees Fahrenheit outside. In the building, you found a two level stainless steel shelving unit with the shelves tilted into the building. The baggage handlers were on the other side unloading the baggage carts and sliding the bags down the shelves.

It was 25 years ago, but the was the smallest airport I've flown commercial into.

Thanks for all the responses guys! I really enjoyed the advice and stories from both sides of the counter.

I think it was member Gibb that said he was diplomatic but had the nuclear option on standby. I felt the same way and fortunately the diplomatic option worked.

I really tried to keep in mind that the person I was talking to was the only person who could probably help me and they (hopefully) didn't create the situation. I was hoping that a calm approach would ended up helping me. I'll never know if it did or did not but I do feel good about not having to go nuclear.

Also, I did use the Amex Platinum service and I am in the process of trying to find out who exactly ended up helping me. I sent out emails asking for the email of the person who helped me. I am hoping that providing the name will allow me to follow the chain up to the actual person so I can really thank them. I was disheartened to have someone tell me, "That's how rental cars work sometimes, I'm sorry." and I will be asking the Amex representative about that little gem. (Yes I have the agent's name I spoke with.)