Hertz - Hopefully quick question on car received for class (President's Circle)

First post over on the Hertz side of Flyer-Talk, so please forgive me if I'm covering ground that you all may be tired of discussing.

Anyway, had a one-way rental this week from Hertz. My company's rental policy has just changed, so now we're limited to "compact" class. So that's what I booked, though I understand as a President's Circle member you entitled to a one-class upgrade (I could be wrong as I never really cared about it when renting intermediate class, but it may be an important benefit in the compact range) .

The car I received was a stripped out Nissan Sentra. A/C was about the only option on the car. No power locks, no power mirrors, that's about it. Trunk took about 20 times to actually close/latch, but that's beside the point. The big thing was no cruise control. As a one way rental, highway travel is kind of implied and it stunk to not have it.

Anyway, my question is, is a base Nissan Sentra a compact class or intermediate (or other?). Either way, I'd hope that cruise-control would be one of those things that would be included in all but perhaps the lowest rental class.

Part of my inquiry is because another rental company is willing to just automatically give our company intermediate class cars at compact class purchase, and if I can expect more of the above from compact class out of Hertz, I may consider switching over after being loyal to hertz for many years.

what was the car class code on the keyfob? (or the receipt)

If it was YB or C, unfortunately Hertz has met the terms of the PC upgrade. I've never seen a Sentra, so can't really comment.

One thing to note - A few months ago Hertz started to clamp down on PC upgrades when a compact is booked. The best upgrade you will get from a compact reservation under normal circumstances is now a midsize. Whereas it remains routine to get very good upgrades from a booked midsize or better. They want people to book at least midsize, as National does with the Exec Aisle.

what was the car class code on the keyfob? (or the receipt)

If it was YB or C, unfortunately Hertz has met the terms of the PC upgrade. I've never seen a Sentra, so can't really comment.

One thing to note - A few months ago Hertz started to clamp down on PC upgrades when a compact is booked. The best upgrade you will get from a compact reservation under normal circumstances is now a midsize. Whereas it remains routine to get very good upgrades from a booked midsize or better. They want people to book at least midsize, as National does with the Exec Aisle.

Receipt shows "Rate Class: B"
(I don't see any kind of sub-code or class listed anywhere else other than that)

The Sentra is in the Focus/Civic class in the "real world" (though not as good as the Focus or Civic in my opinion) and this one was stripped as well.

ah - sounds like you didn't get what you were entitled to. I've seen locations use one-way rentals to get "bad" cars off their lot and onto another location's. That may be what happened here.

ah - sounds like you didn't get what you were entitled to. I've seen locations use one-way rentals to get "bad" cars off their lot and onto another location's. That may be what happened here.

That was exactly my thought when I drove off the lot (that they were dumping a bad car off to another location). However, while I can somewhat understand that maneuver, it seems like you wouldn't do it to a Gold member on up, if at all.

To update - last Friday I sent an inquiry off to Hertz about this to better understand if the car I received was correct or not as it will help me to better make a decision to stay with Hertz or not.

When I hear back from them, I'll note it in here.

A Sentra is a YB. You did receive an upgrade. The rate class will always be the class you reserved. The vehicle class you were assigned is usually under the vehicle numbers (e.g. 1898/9804927) - for those who are interested, the first four numbers represent the owning city and the last seven numbers represent the actual vehicle number. 1498 is Atlanta, 1398 is Florida (All Florida cars are pooled together instead of individual cities), etc...

A Sentra is a YB. You did receive an upgrade. The rate class will always be the class you reserved. The vehicle class you were assigned is usually under the vehicle numbers (e.g. 1898/9804927) - for those who are interested, the first four numbers represent the owning city and the last seven numbers represent the actual vehicle number. 1498 is Atlanta, 1398 is Florida (All Florida cars are pooled together instead of individual cities), etc...

Yikes, if that's right........what an awful car. I think that's about all I needed to know about having to rent compact class then (even with upgrades). Sounds like it is time for a change.

I appreciate the help on this. Thanks!

Yikes, if that's right........what an awful car. I think that's about all I needed to know about having to rent compact class then (even with upgrades). Sounds like it is time for a change.

I appreciate the help on this. Thanks!

I think you were just very unlucky this time around. Most Sentras are not stripped down like the one you received. If you get something stripped down like that again then you may want to go to the counter and try to switch out. When people are assigning cars, they don't see what features it has besides Hertz added features (e.g. Neverlost) unless they go to a separate screen that is not required to view. More than likely, they thought you were getting a Sentra with normal features because 99.9% have them.

The only feature that you may not receive as often as you would like is cruise control. Many compacts don't have cruise.

One ways can be tricky as some locations try to get rid of cars they don't want - this Sentra is a likely case. You can certainly argue and get smth else next time if it's critical.
I occasionally take crappy cars from my HLE one way to the airport: I don't mind on a short drive and they drop the rate by a few $.

just to update - no response from Hertz as of yet.

just to update - no response from Hertz as of yet.

Doesn't surprise me to be honest...

Where did you pick-up and drop-off? My guess is the car you got belonged to the destination location or thereabouts. It could be your destination location runs a cheaper fleet of cars than the average medium to large airport, so they try to get the base model in every category whereas a larger airport would have a larger mix. Just my speculation though based on what I've seen from other agencies. Perhaps spades097 can either confirm my theory or put me in my place. :D

Doesn't surprise me to be honest...

Where did you pick-up and drop-off? My guess is the car you got belonged to the destination location or thereabouts. It could be your destination location runs a cheaper fleet of cars than the average medium to large airport, so they try to get the base model in every category whereas a larger airport would have a larger mix. Just my speculation though based on what I've seen from other agencies. Perhaps spades097 can either confirm my theory or put me in my place. :D

I don't really know much about the logic behind the purchase of certain vehicles. However, it is very unlikely that the car that was assigned was given for geographical reasons. Years ago before I worked there I know that cars had to be returned to their area but someone realized how stupid that was. Yes, one way rentals can be used to dump cars that are not wanted (This can work in your favor, though - sometimes they want to get rid of a luxury car because they can't rent it for what they need) but you usually won't find anybody putting a PC customer in a bad car.

The only situation where you may have been given a car for geographical reasons is if it was a licensee car. When a corporate location receives a licensee car it can only rent the car on one ways back to the licensee or at least to a location that would bring it closer. For example, if there was a licensee car from South Dakota in Atlanta then Atlanta can rent the car to Chicago but cannot rent it to Jacksonville. If you still have your receipt then you can look at the vehicle number. If the first number was a 9 then it was a licensee car.

I don't really know much about the logic behind the purchase of certain vehicles. However, it is very unlikely that the car that was assigned was given for geographical reasons. Years ago before I worked there I know that cars had to be returned to their area but someone realized how stupid that was. Yes, one way rentals can be used to dump cars that are not wanted (This can work in your favor, though - sometimes they want to get rid of a luxury car because they can't rent it for what they need) but you usually won't find anybody putting a PC customer in a bad car.

The only situation where you may have been given a car for geographical reasons is if it was a licensee car. When a corporate location receives a licensee car it can only rent the car on one ways back to the licensee or at least to a location that would bring it closer. For example, if there was a licensee car from South Dakota in Atlanta then Atlanta can rent the car to Chicago but cannot rent it to Jacksonville. If you still have your receipt then you can look at the vehicle number. If the first number was a 9 then it was a licensee car.

Vehicle number does not begin with a 9 (just checked).

Heard back from them today. Basically a form letter. Problem noted, thanks and that's about it. Not real impressed, but oh well.

I've started moving my future reservations over to the other rental company and I'll use Hertz for a few still here and there where they're the handiest/or the other company isn't available/option.