Hertz - What's the official Hertz policy if they have no car when you arrive?

What's the official Hertz policy if they have no car when you arrive?(with confirmed/prepaid reservation)

Thanks!

I have never seen a printed policy on this. I would love to see one of the companies start one, as it might give them a competetive edge. But, I can also say that since I have been a #1 Gold member, I have never not had a car waiting for me upon arrival.

I had a friend, however, who arrived at IAH to find that the car that he had reserved from another company was not there. That company was absolutely useless in their attempt to accommodate my friend. They basically told him that they would get him a car as soon as they could -- and that might not be for a few days! Unfortunately, no one else at IAH had any cars, either, so it wasn't like he could just take his business elsewhere.

What's the official Hertz policy if they have no car when you arrive?(with confirmed/prepaid reservation)

Thanks!
i'm not sure there is a true policy in existence. the keyword here is prepaid which means more than just a reservation. in DEN, we assigned cars to all prepaid customers at sunrise. i don't recall a prepaid customer not having a car upon arrival.

i'm not sure there is a true policy in existence. the keyword here is prepaid which means more than just a reservation. in DEN, we assigned cars to all prepaid customers at sunrise. i don't recall a prepaid customer not having a car upon arrival.

The prepaid reservation was booked via Travelocity around
noon. Pick-up time was 9 hours later(same day) at 9PM.


I guess it wouldn't help if the car rentalagency assign
cars to prepaid customers at sunrise in this case... :)


The good news is that after a quick phone call to the
Travelocity customer service, the issue was resolved
within a few minutes. (the customer was sent to another
rental agency, and Travelocity compensated for his
trouble by giving him a $50 credit towards any future
trip)

From experience I can say that there is no policy (or if there is, some locations don't follow the policy).

I recently had a booking for a Prestige car at London Victoria. Upon arrival I was told that they had not car for me because someone "forgot" to have it delivered. Only after waiting close to 45 minutes and after much complaining, did they bother to check with any other Hertz locations in London. They finally found one at Marble Arch and kindly offered to pay for my taxi, but were visibly taken aback when I asked for some further incentives (a 20% reduction in my total bill) due to the inconvenience caused.

The way I was treated at Marble Arch is another story (effectively, what the staff at Victoria told me the Marble Arch location could do for me and what they told Marble Arch that they should do for me seemed to be two completely different stories).

I'm wondering who's really deserves the blame when there's no car available. Is Hertz's reservation system unable to adequately predict pickups/returns? Or is it the customers who fail to return cars on-time. (possibly a little bit of both?)

It seems odd that for a business that has a policy/fine print/rule/clause for just about everything imaginable, the car rental company does not have an official policy on customes who paid for but didn't receive the service/product.... :)

What's the official Hertz policy if they have no car when you arrive?(with confirmed/prepaid reservation)

Thanks!

I think it is very rare that they have no cars at all. What can happen is they have no cars in your reserved class. Some locations will then attempt to up-sell you into a higher class car. You should always refuse to pay more than your reserved rate.

If a reserved car is not available, the next sized car must be offered at the same rate. If they have no upgrades to offer they can however downgrade you. In that case you have no choice but to take the smaller car. You are free however to call hertz and complain. They will usually send you 50-100$ in rental certs to compensate you for your trouble.

A lot depends on how you handle the situation if it's just a lack of the correct car class. Last month I reserved an MX-5 from LAX, because I was interested in trying one to see if wanted to buy one (answer: no, there's not quite enough legroom for 6'4")

When I arrived, there was no MX-5 on hand and the guy behind the counter offered me a series of "upgrades" to various SUVs. I politely declined all the behemoths I was offered, and eventually an MX-5 showed up, with my one-way drop fee waived.

The prepaid reservation was booked via Travelocity around noon. Pick-up time was 9 hours later(same day) at 9PM.
I guess it wouldn't help if the car rentalagency assign
cars to prepaid customers at sunrise in this case... :)
at roughly 6am, the morning dispatcher views all reservations for the day and assigns vehicles appropriately. the process is repeated in the afternoon and again late at night.

I'm wondering who's really deserves the blame when there's no car available. Is Hertz's reservation system unable to adequately predict pickups/returns? Or is it the customers who fail to return cars on-time. (possibly a little bit of both?)
both. the reservation system can only determine availability based on what customers have stated as their rental/return times. should a customer return earlier or later, which is often the case, those are unavoidable situations.

^
additionally, the operation is not as cut and dry as it may appear to an outsider. customer books a car 3 months in advance, but the car he/she drives away in might have only been returned and serviced 30 min before his/her arrival.
a customer once called me to inquire about his rental in one week. he wanted to know what type of vehicle it was and where it was parked. :D

What's the official Hertz policy if they have no car when you arrive?(with confirmed/prepaid reservation)

Thanks!

Here in the UK cars for reservations are held for two hours,pre paid or not pre paid, a reservation is a reservation no matter how it is paid. In most UK city locations a decision as to what car is assigned is not often made until the last minute, futher to this, Hertz UK must upgrade free of chrge should the reserved vehicle group not be available. However I do hear that Heathrow airport 'try it on'

Regards
Phil

Update: My friend just received a hand-written letter from the manager at that Hertz location. Basically the manager apologized for the incident and hope my friend will rent from Hertz in the future.
It included a one free rental day coupon(weekday or weekend in the U.S). I think that's a very nice gesture on Hertz's part.

I'd love to see a written policy. This has only happened to me once in 10 years of renting from Hertz, and it was right after they rolled out the President's Circle level. I happened to be the only PC out of about 50 people waiting, so I got a car within about 5 minutes. (And yes, I made it clear - I wanted the next car in and wouldn't complain about car size no matter what it was.)

I think they could solve half of the problems associated with these situations if they called a cab company and had a few line up at Hertz. Sometimes I don't really need the car right then so much as I just need to get downtown or to my hotel. For some trips, with a round-trip cab fare from Hertz to downtown and back to the airport, I may not even need my rental car at all. If Hertz had someone on the airport bus, explaining the situation as people board, with taxi vouchers in hand, they'd divert a good portion of their angry customers off the lot very quickly.

Of course that doesn't fix the problem. Just lessens it. The people who need the cars the absolute most are still going to be angry. But at least they'll get their cars a bit faster by getting rid of the people who could live with cabs.

Messed up!

It has happened to me three times with Hertz in the past 6 years. Twice as a hertz Gold. In those instances I was given the option of waiting or to have one delivered to me at my hotel as soon as possible. Two of the three times I took the delivery option and they called me a Taxi. got a car within 12 hours both times. I gave Hertz the cab reciept and they took off the cost from my rental and I got a free day certificate a week later in the mail. the one time I waited they gave me a car in 2 hours, no free day certificate, not even a coffee.

I figure take the path of least resistance and you end up better. its always worked for me.

Oh...locations. LAX, HNL, LAS.

I'd love to see a written policy. This has only happened to me once in 10 years of renting from Hertz, and it was right after they rolled out the President's Circle level. I happened to be the only PC out of about 50 people waiting, so I got a car within about 5 minutes. (And yes, I made it clear - I wanted the next car in and wouldn't complain about car size no matter what it was.)

I think they could solve half of the problems associated with these situations if they called a cab company and had a few line up at Hertz. Sometimes I don't really need the car right then so much as I just need to get downtown or to my hotel. For some trips, with a round-trip cab fare from Hertz to downtown and back to the airport, I may not even need my rental car at all. If Hertz had someone on the airport bus, explaining the situation as people board, with taxi vouchers in hand, they'd divert a good portion of their angry customers off the lot very quickly.

Of course that doesn't fix the problem. Just lessens it. The people who need the cars the absolute most are still going to be angry. But at least they'll get their cars a bit faster by getting rid of the people who could live with cabs.

If that happened to me I would say please call a cab. Here is my cell phone number when you get a car delivered to me I will stop taking cabs. Please write me a note stating you are unable to honor your reservation. We can credit the cab fares to the rental upon completion.

hertz rental system at the location is not directly connected to the web system. there are updates every hour, but hte coupon information does not always come through. You must check prior to getting in the car. As far as not having a car, I am a gold member that rented 72 cars last year from Ohare and PHL locations. Ohare was great, PHL did not have my vehicle several times. My name was on the board, but no car was in the spot. They offered me a mini van (I reserved a taurus) and when I shrugged no, they would not upgrade me to a luxury car (kind of knew that was going to happen). What I would get consistently was a truck or SUV with the gas surcharge waived. The pickup held 30 gallons, and It was mulching time at my house.