Trip Reports - Hertz rental Milan MXP

Here's an e-mail I sent to Hertz' Italian Customer Relations yesterday:

Dear Sir or Madam,

I am usually very fond of the Gold Service Hertz offers.

My last rental at Milan's Malpensa 2000 Airport was another experience:

Upon arrival, an electronic sign saying "Gold Service offered at parking office" directed me from Hertz' crowdy main counter to the parking deck. Unfortunately, the sign in the parking deck's middle did not point out whether Hertz' parking office was on the left or the right side of the parking deck. So I took my heavy luggage to the wrong side. Once found, my reserved car was assigned very quickly. When checking the car's exterior I remarked two dents not mentioned on the check-out form. So, back to the Gold counter, where the dents were noted. Upon leaving, I found out, that one of the main lights was not working. Back to the Gold counter again. Then, back to the car with an employee who was not able to replace the light bulb. I had to unload the luggage and - back again to the counter - wait for a new car, which luckily was OK (although it had dents, too.) All in all over 30 minutes from the Hertz main counter until I was ready to leave. Bad Gold Service performance!

Another story is the refueling upon return. Using the autostrada from Como/Milano the last gas station to be found on the highway was (in retrospective) about 20 kilometers apart from the airport. I did not care because normally every airport has a gas station in its proximity. This one had not. So, one exit back, where an additional 20 minute drive made me realize, that on sundays Italian gas stations seem not to be manned. You have either the option of buying gas with an Italian banking card (which tourist has?) or of prepaying with 20 EUR and 5 EUR notes, which, in order to fill up the tank to full without overpaying, takes a fortune teller to guess how many Euros this might cost. In the end, I had to have Hertz refuel my 3/4 full tank which cost me 32 EUR (if I had been able to use a regular gas station, I guess my fuel purchase would have been under 10 EUR).

In my opinion Hertz should inform its custumers on manned gas stations in the proximity of MXP AP (if there are some) by mentioning them on the map provided. Otherwise, customers will have to refuel far before arriving at the airport which makes the 18 EUR refueling fee unavoidable.

I am looking forward to your reply.

Yours faithfully,

JanAckermann

You know why many airports have no gas stations close by? Nothing to do with lack of demand, and everything to do with the rental car companies lobbying against it. You got lucky paying only 18 EUR.

I got screwed in HNL because the airport gas station was closed for Labor Day, but either Hertz there is really nice or there is an airport regulation, so my refueling was only $3/gallon. At most Hertz locaitons in the US refueling is $5.50 per gallon, which means a SUV could cost almost $100 to refuel!

Some airports are worse than others when it comes to gas stations close by. TPA, SFO, and SJC come to mind as particularly inconvenient - the notable thing these airport have in common is the freeway exit to the airport doesn't take you past any gas stations.

LAS also is really annoying because driving down Tropicana from the Strip there are no gas stations on the correct side of the road, but one seems to be under construction.

I make it a point to scope out gas stations when I take out my car, but after my HNL experience, I'll start checking for alternates.

you have some gas stations close to both SFO and SJC, I would say less than a 10 minutes drive from the terminal...

After there was no reply from Hertz' Italian customer service, I asked the Hertz European headquaters to get a response from their Italy branch. Italy did not respond, but only a few days after my email, the HQ in Ireland sent a letter of apology announcing a full refund of the refueling fee as well as a 40 $ coupon for a next rental. Now, that's what I call good customer service :)

I have stopped using Hertz in Milan as they are run a scam amongst scams. They work on the philosophy that you will not come back for a long time and when you do they will not know aything about their scam.

Regardless of returning the car with a full fuel tank and no damage they always seem to make it look like they are mad busy and then do the paperwork without checking the vehicle and when you are around 30000 feet off the ground put a charge on for damage and re-fuelling. Try getting this back !!!!

The last time this happened we were back 10 days later and got the guy who checked our car back in, took him to the car park where the same car was parked and asked him to show us the damage, he could not, we asked him to show us proof of repair which he could not and the scratch marked on the sheet when we collected the car was still there but the so called damage we had caused was not to be seen.

He then realised we were on to him and he rented us a 7 seater people carrier for the price of a tiny fiat. We also made sure we paid cash.

Whenwe make bookings now we use the pre pay system through Amex Travel and make sure we dont use Hertz.