Hertz - Extremely annoying problems at SEA

For two weeks in a row, my UAL flight getting into SEA has been delayed by a couple of hours :mad: On both occassions, I get to my car (name up on board), to find no keys or contract.

So, I have to go wait in line, and this AM a very long line (lots of people with the same problem). After a false start where they gave me someone elses keys, I'm mad enough to talk to the manager.

He told me that Hertz policy is to yank the keys as a "no show" after 29 minutes (!!!). The problem then is that he's understaffed, so even if your account is linked to a flight (which is delayed) it can take them a couple of hours to figure that out and put the keys back in the car.

So, this ridiculous combination of policy / understaffing basically means that if you're 29 minutes or more late no gold service for you.

If this happens again, I'm switching to Avis. Will they comp whatever status they have that matches PC?

Avis will probably comp you, but their rewards/status perks for being a frequent traveller are a joke. Not to mention the selection of cars. :td:

Maybe I can call the Hertz location directly or call CS if my flight is delayed and ask them not to pull the contract. Has anyone tried this? Does it work?

Obviously I shouldn't have to do this (since they should already know it is late through the flight #), but desperate times...

Sorry - accidently dup'd last posting when network or flyertalk crapped out on me.

He told me that Hertz policy is to yank the keys as a "no show" after 29 minutes (!!!).

Is this unique to SEA? I've been delayed a few hours at MCO, LAX and ORD over the years, but have never had this occur (i.e.name on board, but no contract or keys in car).

Probably. The SEA manager is a...well, in the interests of the TOS... :)

I have had the same problem at SEA when arriving a bit early (once the staffer was coming over to add them), but since I arrive via bus, I can time it almost perfectly to my stated arrival.

I was about five hours late into EWR due to a mechanical at LAX and weather delays on approach and my car with the keys was still sitting in the stall. Never had to go hunt for keys at any other Gold Canopy site.

I was going to post a new thread on this, but you beat me to the punch.
I arrived at SEA 35 min late (June 25), due to a flight delay (my flight number was incluced with my reservation). Name was not even posted. I went inside the small building (where the names are posted). I was told my name was removed 10 mon ago, since I was a no-show! I asked if they even checked the flight number, but got no response. Only one other person there, and she was upset about some other problem. The guy did get a car for me in my reserved class, but it has over 19K miles, and drove very rough (didn't complain about this).
So, my question is, for a Gold #1 member (who posts flight number so delays can be traced), how long after our posted pick-up time SHOULD our name still be posted on the board?

SEA usually pulls my name after an hour if I am running late.

I arrived 15 minutes EARLY at YVR last week, and my name wasn't on the board, and they didn't even have a car for me. I had to wait the 15 minutes for them to bring a car. Anyone else had this happen before?

SEA is brutal.

My recent flights into SEA have been arriving 15-20 minutes early. The first couple of times this happened, my name wasn't on the board. So I had to go chase down Hertz employees wherever I could find them to try and get a car. The explanation is always "Oh, we're running behind...we haven't started working the 10:15 arrivals yet."

So...easy fix...I started making my reservations for 9:45AM, even though my scheduled flight arrival is closer to 10:15. That has - so far - fixed the problem. (I return the car in the afternoon, so the exact pickup time is unimportant to my rate.)

But...now I'm hearing that they yank the keys if I'm an hour late! :td: That is a bad system. Period. What exactly is the customer to do, given that we don't have absolute control over flight operations? :rolleyes: (Fortunately, I have yet to be seriously delayed getting into SEA on my usual Tuesday morning flight, knock on wood.)

I've arrived late to all sorts of Hertz stations around the country. Never a problem with my car. If I'm going to be many hours late, I will call the 1-800 Gold number and inform them of the change - partly out of courtesy to the local station and partly to ensure that something like the situation described above doesn't happen to me. But on a garden-variety one to two hour flight delay, I have never called and never had a problem.

C'mon Hertz, be smarter than this. I expect this kind of mickey mouse minor-league operation from Enterprise or Payless - not from Hertz.

I wonder if it would help if all of us who have had arrival/pick-up problems at SEA to send emails to Hertz corporate. I haven't done so to date because I haven't lost serious time in the parking garage - yet. When the line is out the door, I just go find somebody walking around, and so far they've been willing to help.

I have the opposite problem in OAK. They always don't have the car ready because "we are way behind." I make my reservation a full 2 hours before wheels down and it seems to work fine now. Last time I was 75 minutes late and the car was still there (wrong car, but that's another story).

It must be a Seattle thing.

Not quite on topic, but just a SEA observation.

SEA Hertz is the ONLY Hertz dealer to not give me my 5-Star upgrade. Usually I suffer from the opposite problem (I really don't want to get a Ford Excursion as my rental, so I sometimes have to downgrade my car)

...Steve

Not quite on topic, but just a SEA observation.

SEA Hertz is the ONLY Hertz dealer to not give me my 5-Star upgrade. Usually I suffer from the opposite problem (I really don't want to get a Ford Excursion as my rental, so I sometimes have to downgrade my car)

...Steve

When operations are working smoothly, they don't upgrade me either. That said, I usually book small cars at SEA and am quite happy when I get them. The only upgrades I've gotten there were when the whole place was a total cluster**** and they just start assigning random cars to people. I got that high-end Hyundai that is new this year. Don't laugh...it was actually among the nicer non-Prestige cars I've ever gotten from Hertz. :)

Hertz in MKE does the same thing. I arrived 1:30 late the other day (flights from ORD-MKE are always a crapshoot and they MUST know that!)
Everything was gone, the agent was trying to close the gold booth entirely and glared at me for having the nerve to walk in and request a car from him instead of going back to the main desk :mad:

This seems to be an isolated thing at SEA. I've arrived in hours late at other airports many times and never had an issue. If this is their local policy, it's letter writing time.

As to how long? I would say 2.5-3 hours for gold service is fair. Possibly longer for 5* or Prez club

as to running late, this is tough.. I tend (or at least tended to in my old position) to travel last minute so i've more often noticed when they've exceeded expectation. I've often called and gotten my gold service within 2 hour windows. Once (in PDX) having forgotten to call in my reservation, I called after exiting security, walked out the door with my carryon and i was on the board and they were opening the door to hang my tag.. time elapsed under 5 minutes. bravo PDX.

_m

SEA is brutal.

My recent flights into SEA have been arriving 15-20 minutes early. The first couple of times this happened, my name wasn't on the board. So I had to go chase down Hertz employees wherever I could find them to try and get a car. The explanation is always "Oh, we're running behind...we haven't started working the 10:15 arrivals yet."

So...easy fix...I started making my reservations for 9:45AM, even though my scheduled flight arrival is closer to 10:15. That has - so far - fixed the problem. (I return the car in the afternoon, so the exact pickup time is unimportant to my rate.)

But...now I'm hearing that they yank the keys if I'm an hour late! :td: That is a bad system. Period. What exactly is the customer to do, given that we don't have absolute control over flight operations? :rolleyes: (Fortunately, I have yet to be seriously delayed getting into SEA on my usual Tuesday morning flight, knock on wood.)

I've arrived late to all sorts of Hertz stations around the country. Never a problem with my car. If I'm going to be many hours late, I will call the 1-800 Gold number and inform them of the change - partly out of courtesy to the local station and partly to ensure that something like the situation described above doesn't happen to me. But on a garden-variety one to two hour flight delay, I have never called and never had a problem.

C'mon Hertz, be smarter than this. I expect this kind of mickey mouse minor-league operation from Enterprise or Payless - not from Hertz.

I wonder if it would help if all of us who have had arrival/pick-up problems at SEA to send emails to Hertz corporate. I haven't done so to date because I haven't lost serious time in the parking garage - yet. When the line is out the door, I just go find somebody walking around, and so far they've been willing to help.

Oh no, now I am dreading my hertz experience with Seattle in a few days. My flight gets in at 10:20 pm, and I put a time down of 11 pm for arrival as well as airline and flight number thinking this should provide a buffer if the flight is late. Now it seems I should expect a problem regardless of being late or early (and I'm a gold member). I'll keep my fingers crossed and post my experience. Considering hertz is ALWAYS the most expensive when it comes to car rentals, service should be at a premium. we'll see....

Curious to hear how this turned out, if you have a chance...

SEA is definitely THE WORST Hertz location I have ever used, for all the reasons above.

- Cars without keys or contracts
- Name not on the board
- Wrong type of car
- Filthy car
- No upgrades attempted
- No child seats
- Charges wrong upon return
- A general attitude of customer non-service

I just begin to plan my mental expectations for one or more of the above bad experiences every time I visit SEA, which is a sad reflection on their performance compared to most other Hertz locations. Even PHL, the contender to the throne of incompetence, does manage to execute on the right kind of expectations every so often. Hertz should really consider a management change in SEA.

OK, let's all send our emails. I'm picking one up Tuesday morning. If it goes badly, I'm writing them a novel.

SEA is one of those places where I'm tempted to cycle through National for a few rentals. Since they have some nice promos going on, I might begin doing that...

My flight was scheduled to arrive at SEA today just after 11AM. So I did what I usually do...book my car a bit early since I know they are slothlike at Hertz. I mean, geez, it's a friggin' Tuesday and there are only about 30 Hertz employees loitering around the car pickup area, but I digress.

Anyway, flight is 15 minutes early, thank you United, and I roll up at the Big Board at 10:53.

My name isn't on the board. :mad:

So I go inside to the little Gold booth. Two agents helping customers, two customers yelling at said agents about their names not being on the board. I slip around the side of the booth and poke my head in the back room saying hey, help a pinniped out, can I have a car? I find a halfway nice guy who finds my paperwork in the 10:45AM pile, and he assigns me a car and hands me the keys. I'm not complaining, nor am I getting angry, because I'm just trying to sweet-talk ANY car.

I notice my car is a Nissan Sentra. OK, part of me wants to go back on my Golden Rule that I won't b*tch about the lack of an upgrade if I can just get on the road fast. C'mon, I know Five Star doesn't make me the Sultan of Brunei, but a friggin' Sentra? Please. Anyway, I decide not to complain about the car itself. I'm okay with small cars in Seattle - better than a minivan.

But it also dawns on me that the guy helping me out does seem to be halfway intelligent, and now I have his attention, so I ask him point-blank. Every time I fly into Seattle, I have a problem with my Hertz car. My name usually isn't on the board. What exactly is the problem? He shakes his head and says a LOT of people have problems there. They just can't keep up. He mentions that it has to do with where the cars are stored, and says that there is a new process at return-time whereby customers are getting a special form where they can fill out a satisfaction survey. ( :confused: I haven't seen that yet. It must be VERY new. I will post in 2 days if I get it.) Anyway, I tell him it's Tuesday, midday, and the lot is full of cars. It isn't peak pickup or dropoff time. I still don't understand the problem. He shrugs, apologizes, and I move on.

Then I get about 4 miles away from the airport, and I notice a light on the dashboard. It's the fuel light. The car is running on fumes! Are you f-ing kidding me? OK - my bad for not looking at fuel level when I first climbed into the Sentra. I usually do this, as we all should. But I had already left 6-7 minutes on the table jacking around with the Gold booth, so I was just laying rubber trying to get the hell out of Dodge. So I call the Gold line, who tells me to call the Rental Extension line, who tells me to call the Seattle location, who tells me to fill the tank and then apply for a refund after the fact. I say "No, I'm not doing that, because your people with the handheld device won't be able to handle it. I *know* they won't handle that right, and I have already left too much time on the table picking this stupid car up, I'm not losing more on the back end." Finally, they connect me back to the guy who gave me the car, and he agrees to mark my rental as having 0 gas, so I should try and bring it back empty as well.

Anyway, that's my story. Hertz corporate is getting a long *ss nastygram for this one. National is probably getting my future Seattle rentals, especially with 1-2-Free coming again this fall.

You guys are making me re-think renting from Hertz at SEA. I'm coming in midday on a Thursday--I like Hertz because the cars frankly are more interesting. You typically can pay a nominalish fee and end up in something cool, like a G35 (Jan in LGB).

But, if its really THAT bad...

You guys are making me re-think renting from Hertz at SEA. I'm coming in midday on a Thursday--I like Hertz because the cars frankly are more interesting. You typically can pay a nominalish fee and end up in something cool, like a G35 (Jan in LGB).

But, if its really THAT bad...

Maybe throw in a backup Emerald Aisle rental just to be safe? You won't get anything too "interesting", but if Hertz is a total cluster**** when you arrive, you'll at least get a car and get out of there.

Don't you have to pay for Emerald Aisle? I've never rented from National.

Don't you have to pay for Emerald Aisle? I've never rented from National.

You get it free if you're a NW elite; I assume there are also many other ways to get the fee waived.

Finally, they connect me back to the guy who gave me the car, and he agrees to mark my rental as having 0 gas, so I should try and bring it back empty as well.


Follow-up on my rental: they actually did get this right at return. The handheld device had the information that my car should be returned empty. If anyone tells you that the only way they can fix gas problems is for you to fill the tank and show a receipt for credit, they are lying to you.

They absolutely can note a fuel level on your rental and have you bring it back at that level with no special processing at drop-off time.

You get it free if you're a NW elite; I assume there are also many other ways to get the fee waived.

I think that one's even easier to find a fee-waived than Hertz Gold. Do a search on the National forum; there's probably a link.

Word of warning to anyone headed to SEA today: Hertz is a total effing mess.

I had to scramble to find somebody to locate my car. Name not on board...again. No need to go into details, because it's the same problem they always have, and I tried (unsuccessfully) to pre-empt it by booking a 12:30 rental knowing full well I wasn't going to be there until about 12:50. It was more like 1PM and they will still working Noon rentals. People everywhere, pissed off.

Go to the inside counter and ask for a manager. That seems to work better than milling around the Gold desk.

These people are completely incompetent.

They gave me an SUV, as if it matters. This location is totally and completely broken. Hertz corporate needs to do something.