Other Car Rental Programs/Partners (ie. Alamo, Enterprise, Sixt) - Enterprise and Hotwire

I remember a few years ago when Hotwire announced on their home page that Enterprise now participates. Whenever I booked a rental car with Hotwire at hpn, I was always assigned either Hertz or more commonly Avis. Enterprise does not, however, participate with Priceline. (Once at hpn Priceline assigned me to Alamo, and once at mlb they assigned me to Avis.) In all cases I was very satisfied with both the car I was given and the customer service. They didn't treat me like crap just because I paid the cheapo rate. It felt the same as when I booked directly with those companies, of course when they were cheaper than or the same price as Hotwire.

Has anyone been assigned to Enterprise through Hotwire, and if so, how did it go?

Since Enterprise owns both Alamo and National, they may prefer at a corporate level (esp. when corporate locations are involve) to channel the opaque pricing business through those chains instead. I also have not yet received Enterprise on any opaque rentals. I do see National way more often than Alamo (not sure why, but maybe National has more surplus capacity even though in almost all locations I have seen National and Alamo cars are interchangeable).

Avis also owns Budget, and it is possible that they prefer to use the Budget chain for opaque rentals, but like you said, you could get Avis.

Hertz just bought Advantage, so it might be possible they will add Advantage for opaque, but I do not know.

I personally don't think Enterprise should be on Hotwire, because it's not an equivalent product. The other participating companies always give free unlimited miles on all vehicle sizes in the US and Canada. Enterprise does not.

Let's say someone books a midsize on Hotwire at hpn for a week roundtrip to a distant state and is assigned to Enterprise. It's not the customer's fault "the car is not allowed to travel outside these states" because Hotwire assigned the car company. If the customer had booked directly, they would have seen the mileage restriction and booked elsewhere. But Hotwire doesn't ask where the car is going, only stipulating that the car must be booked and returned to the same airport.

Or, Hotwire says unlimited miles. The customer books a supersize SUV for one day at hpn, and is expecting to go to upstate NY and back in the same day to haul some large furniture. Hotwire assigns Enterprise. Except recently Enterprise at hpn put a 200 mile cap on large SUVs. (Yes, it's more liberal than the neighborhood 150 mile cap, and this is currently the only vehicle category at hpn subject to the cap.)

I wonder if anyone has run into these types of problems booking with Hotwire. Maybe our good friend rentalguy has some answers and advice.

Weird enough, I just got Enterprise on Hotwire for JFK. Definitely, unexpected but I noticed some nasty things that I believe reflect badly on Hotwire.

1) "Unlimited" Miles are restricted to geographic region (CT/NY/NJ), but Hotwire doesn't mention any geographic region until after you purchase (at the beginning it only says unlimited miles with no geopgrahich limitation note). Bad stuff.

2) Car types misaligned. Hotwire says a Mid-Size is a Pontiac G6 or similar. Enteprise says an Intermediate is a Pontiac G5. It appears a G5 is a rebadge Cobalt which according to Hotwire is a Compact. More bad stuff.

3) Enterprise had a similar retail price on its website. I should have checked their website (that is my mistake), but the advise here is if you think Enterprise might be what Hotwire is offering, check Enterprise's site directly.

Rasheed