Hertz - Kona Economy or upgrade?

I have booked a rental car for Kona through priceline, and won a Hertz "Economy" vehicle. There is an option to upgrade to "Compact" for $2/day. Is this a worthwhile upgrade for 2 persons? I am driving a Corolla at home ...

Locations generally have very few economy cars, so most likely you would get a compact car anyways.

If I thought I could avoid a Chevy Aveo I would surely spend $2/day to do so.

I wouldn't think you'd get what you reserve, either. When we were there a few months ago, they only had SUVs, one DTS, and a few convertibles left around 5pm mid-week. Apparently, their fleet size was reduced dramatically.

You could put in your profile "no AVEO". If they have an economy car, the other one would be a Hyundai Accent 4 dr. I got one of those for a week & it's not too bad. OK for 2 people. I dislike the AVEO! Accent is OK.

I have no SUV in my profile. I don't care for SUV.

I was out at PDX this week and shocked how many small cars they had on the lot. The fleet used to be top heavy (full size, suv, etc.) but now the lot was full of Corollas, Mazda 3, Prius). I didn't see any Aveo (they are tragic) but they had a handful of Yaris.

I think the fleet is going more foreign as they seem to hold their resale better. I didn't a Chrysler on the lot, and the only GM I remember was the Silverado I rented.

Not sure if the OP picked up their rental already, but when renting from KOA/ITO I usually prefer something midsize or bigger. Just because there is a lot of 2-lane highway driving and there aren't a lot of traffic lights or street lights for that matter.

I wanted to do the upgrade, but by the time I had decided it was no longer available through priceline. Anyway, when I showed up they gave me a 2009 Mazda 6 which, according to another thread is now classified as fullsize. It was pleasant to drive around the Big Island and handled the hills and turns just fine.

On another note, using priceline was not the cost saver I had anticipated. My credit card (MBNA) would not cover CDW so I purchased additional rental coverage through my car insurance. Also, Hertz does not provide frequent flyer miles for rentals done through priceline. I will not use priceline for car rental again.

The frequent flyer surcharges keep going up to the point where it really isn't worth avoiding one booking channel just to make sure you get miles.

When I left Hertz last month the FF surcharge was a max of $2.00. I just booked a car and it gave me a notice saying that the FF surcharge could be up to $1.00 per day up to a maximum of $5.25 per rental.

The miles aren't worth that much on most rentals.

How do you guys update your profile like the example given of putting "No AVEO" on the profile?

How do you guys update your profile like the example given of putting "No AVEO" on the profile?

I don't think you can add it to your profile. If you are booking your reservations over the phone then the agent can add comments like "No Aveo" but that isn't a preference that will normally show up. The prefences can usually be "Prefer Ford, Prefer Foreign Car, Prefer Domestic Car" and so on. The brands listed as preferred though were just GM & Ford. When your reservation is pulled for assignment it will display your preferences and then comments if any exist. As far as I know, comments can only be added by employees.

By the way - an Aveo is a specialty compact (YB). I don't know why so please don't yell at me. I know they are awful - it doesn't take a genius to spend more than 5 seconds in the car to realize that.

Standard economy cars are an Accent and a Rio. You want the Accent if you get a choice. They both drive awful since they are the same car but at least the Accent has power windows/locks. It is about all you can expect for a car that costs $11-13k new.

BTW, this is what we rented from KOA in 2005. It was a lot of fun, though probably voided our rental agreement.

http://www.thaitum.com/photos_public/hertz/thumbs/th_dsc07075.jpghttp://www.thaitum.com/photos_public/hertz/thumbs/th_dsc07072.jpg
http://www.thaitum.com/photos_public/hertz/thumbs/th_dsc07009.jpghttp://www.thaitum.com/photos_public/hertz/thumbs/th_dsc06980.jpghttp://www.thaitum.com/photos_public/hertz/thumbs/th_dsc07083.jpg