Hertz - five star gold upgrades

Just a suggestion that you might find helpful:

I've probably rented from Hertz 15 times this year, and my upgrade percentage upon arrival at the car rental vicinity is pretty much 0% -- maybe I've been given a upgrade once or twice.

That said, I've taken to going into the Gold office and politely asking "Do you have the Five Star upgrade available by any chance?" -- and have received multi-class upgrades (Compact to Full, Compact to Standard SUV) several times, and a one class upgrade on all occasions. Most of these experiences have been at SFO, SAN, TPA, DTW.

While it's too bad that they don't do this in the first place, I've been pleasantly surprised by how helpful they've been when I've made a request.

Thanks for the tip. I'll give it a shot on my next trip.

Nice idea, but I thought the whole idea of the service was to AVOID the counter!

I've found that SFO in particular likes to upgrade from F to YF (maxima), even for a president's circle member. i'd ask for something bigger if the maxima wasn't such a fun car.

last trip, i finally went from F to YG. YG was an avalon xls--an excellent addition to the fleet, i must say.

I've found the five star program to be pretty much of a joke when it comes to upgrades. Perhaps by flying into large airports (Chicago, Newark, LA, etc) I must fight through too much competition.

I find IAD and DCA give me upgrades from F as a five star at least 80% of the time. And the times they don't are usually when I have requested Neverlost and I see a Taurus with Neverlost in my space.

I do rent at these two stations frequently, so that may help, but my colleagues report a lot of upgrades, too.

In particular, when they get a new type of car in the fleet I almost see a couple of them on my next rentals. It happened with the Volvos, now with the small SUVs like the RAV4 and Escape: Q class?

BWI hasn't upgraded me, but I think things may change there; they're getting Prestige collection.

Charles

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">Originally posted by LAX UA 1K:
now with the small SUVs like the RAV4 and Escape: Q class?
</font>

We got one of those Escapes in "Baywatch Yellow" when renting in Ontario, and you don't know how impressed my 14 year old daughter was :-)