Hertz - First Hertz rental = disappointing experience




Stefan0521
Mar 1, 06, 4:48 pm
Hi everyone,

I'd just like to vent my anger here, maybe you can tell me if I have to expect more of this kind...

After Sixt stopped giving 2000 LH miles per rental I decided to try Hertz, who still offer 1500 LH miles. Since Hertz is the world market leader they couldn't be that bad, right? Well... I made a reservation for a class E vehicle, which would be something like a Peugeot 407 according to their website. Since I had to go quite some distance and had to pay the rental myself I deemed this to be the best compromise between cost and comfort.

When I arrived at the station I was given a Ford Focus as the only choice. Because I had no experience with Hertz' car classification and the counter clerk didn't tell me otherwise, I figured that this had to be a car of the class I ordered and though I noticed that it was a lot smaller than expected I assumed that it was probably one of the worse examples of this class and they therefore had every right to do so.

During the journey, which was as mediocre as expected, it dawned on me that they had pulled a fast one on me. Afterwards I found out from the Hertz website, that the Focus, which happened to have a navigational system, was in class Q, which is actually class C with navigational system. When I asked Hertz to adjust the bill to C accordingly, because I didn't order and use the nav., they flat out refused. I was charged E, which has the same price as Q.

Point 1: If I order a comfortable limousine and I'm given something smaller I expect the price to be made smaller as well. Actually I'd even expect more than that, because I might need the big car I ordered, I might need room for people, for baggage, whatever...

Point 2: If I don't need a navigational system, and therefore don't order it, they can give it to me for free if they want, but they mustn't charge me for it.

I finally managed to squeeze a 30$ voucher out of Hertz' customer service, but only after mentioning my status at Sixt... :rolleyes: What bothered me is that they didn't really subscribe to my point, so I'm wondering if I have to expect this kind of experience more often from now. Having been treated with Mercedes CLKs for even smaller reservations by Sixt, I am definitely disappointed. I surely didn't expect a big luxury car at my first rental (as apposed to 25+ rentals/year from Sixt), but at least I expected to be treated fairly.

Sorry, but I had to tell somebody...

Regards,
Stefan


pinniped
Mar 1, 06, 5:05 pm
While I'm not familiar with European car classifications, if they force you into a downgrade, they should definitely not charge you for the larger size. And if you don't book a navigational system or satellite radio and the car happens to have it, you shouldn't be charged for it. You should have been billed the C rate - in fact, an apology plus a maybe a little bit of a courtesy discount off of the C rate is what they should have done.

The catch is that the price difference between classes sometimes is not much. Full-size to mid-size in the US might be $2/day; sometimes it's $0! (No idea what C to E is in Europe.) So as long as it wasn't a 2-week rental or something, the $30 is probably fair. But more important than that, they should have explained the situation better, especially if there were options up front for you to maybe pick a different car.

paullevi
Mar 1, 06, 5:48 pm
Yes, reminds me of the agent in BUF who refused to give me a discount after I was given a Freestyle on an Expedition reservation :confused:




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