turbov6

The sign up process for On Demand is easier if you already have a Gold Plus Rewards membership. Just enter your name, Gold Rewards number and cell phone, that's it. Don't forget to enter promo code ZEWEB25 for a $25 credit.

http://www.hertzondemand.com/goldenroll

FlyinHawaiian

To Hertz' credit, a rep did call me today to discuss the negative feedback I gave on the online survey. It sounds like there are some service issues with a few employees who are not familiar with the product and also think LGA needs to step up a bit on their customer service. I did mention that I liked the addition of getting ZE1 points for rentals and suggested that if they also gave credit towards Five Star and President's Circle status, I would be a more frequent renter.

Hertz is giving me a $25 for my inconvenience, which I think is fair. I seem to be flying in/out of LGA the most these days, so I do hope that station gets better with their customer service.

xienon

FlyinHawaiian, how has your experience been picking up the one-ways from Manhattan locations? The list of locations that allow one way pick ups in midtown seems to change constantly and about 1/2 the locations are generally grayed out.

I'm basically trying to figure out much "buffer" time to build in for my one-way to EWR in case HoD changes my pick up location or worse, tells me to pick up car that doesn't exist (as happened to a previous poster on this thread).

FlyinHawaiian

I don't do many one-ways to the airports; I mostly take cabs or mass transit, depending on the time of day, although with ZE1 points now possible, the extra time of picking up a car and dropping it off at the airport may make On Demand a more attractive offer than a cab.

FlyinHawaiian

Same problems at LGA last night with me having to go hunt for the car in their lot only to find it parked in and having to wait for them to move cars. Car was a YF Malibu with Pennsylvania plates. I think I kept the number for the On Demand rep who called me last week so I will try dinging them on the online survey and following up with a call. I'm going to make it my mission to make LGA a better place for OnDemand; ya'll can thank me later.

Both EWR and JFK have dedicated and marked spaces for OnDemand and while LGA's lot is much smaller, I don't think it's too much to ask for LGA to be consistent on where they put their cars and I also think the back corner of the lot parked in behind other cars is *not* an option.

I also had a problem when I returned the car; I closed out the rental at the garage and locked the car but the valets were having trouble getting their credential to work. Since that is my normal drop-off point and I'd like to stay on friendly terms with them, I spent about 10 minutes on hold with OnDemand customer support so they could send an unlock signal to the car.

Funny story - I dropped off a YF Captiva at EWR yesterday morning and I saw it parked under the Gold Canopy at LGA last night.

Auto Enthusiast

The Malibu with PA plates was probably retired from the regular Hertz fleet. That can lower operating costs than always buying new stuff, especially for short car-sharing trips. But it can also mean higher mileage cars, compared to other companies that only do car-sharing, not regular rentals.

Seeing the same car somewhere else is indeed funny. A few years ago, I once saw the Cobalt I brought one-way from Miami to my nearest NY metro HLE at another distant HLE later in the summer. Last summer, a family member took an Avis minivan one-way from upstate NY. A few weeks later, I was getting an oil change for my car, and saw the same minivan in the Budget lot across the street.

In your case, it sounds like someone did a one day, one-way rental from EWR to LGA. One-ways between airports in the same market tend to be highly competitive, because they occur so often, prices are high, distances are relatively short, and thus the revenue pie is very big.

forextrader

As a possible alternative to HOD, I just completed a one way rental from Manhattan (West 55th Street office) to Newark Airport.

Special One Way rate of $19.99 for up to 24 hours - I cant access the exact webpage as I am now in England and Hertz.com special offers default to UK offers - but it was on the SPECIAL OFFERS tab.

I believe it applies for rentals TO JFK OR EWR Saturday or Sunday and FROM JFK or EWR Thursday and Friday (please double check this).

You need to enter RQ Code MOVEIT

Collected car on Saturday 18 Feb at 6pm (1hr later than I had indicated - I did not advise the office I was running late). All paperwork done within 5 minutes.

Given a Mitsubishi Galant with 26,500 miles with FL plates. Also had the NEVER LOST which I was not charged for.

As I was not staying in Manhattan, parking for the evening was no problem.

Had use of the car for that evening and the next day, before heading back to Newark airport (the NEVER LOST feature of selecting airport locations was super, as I was in West Orange NJ and was not 100% sure of the best route to the airport) and was my first time back in West Orange in 25 years.

Return of car at Newark again just took 3-5 min to get my receipt. Monorail to Terminal was also easy to get to.

I paid $9 for the LDW, so with tax a grand total of $33 for a full days use of a car.

Note that the car was given to me with full tank of gas (very full in fact) - you need to return with full tank. Just before the entrance to the Hertz lot at Newark there is a BP Petrol station - very convenient.

Auto Enthusiast

Yes, this offer can be a satisfactory alternative for some, but only for certain days and times, and only between Manhattan neighborhood stores and Newark. A while ago, Hertz had one-way shuttle rates between LGA and JFK as well, but discontinued them.

FlyinHawaiian

I sent a strongly-worded email to HOD customer service along with dinging LGA on the survey and received a call from an Area Manager this afternoon. In short, he just got done working with LGA and has now set up dedicated parking spaces for the OnDemand cars. The spaces are directly across from the Gold Canopy signboard; if you exit the bus, you would walk away from the signboard and towards the return area and there should be a row of spaces that are clearly marked as OnDemand.

I also reiterated my request for OnDemand rentals to count towards 5*/PC status.

NYCTaximan

FlyHawaiian - It seems that NYC HLE has gotten rid of their DRIVE UR Self promos to the NYC airports and is using the HOD as a substitute. Based on your last comment, Hertz are not qualifying HOD rentals towards 5*/Circle status? Is that right?

BTW - Hertz LGA has the worst customer service.

FlyinHawaiian

As of December of last year, OnDemand rentals now can earn ZE1 points but they still are exempt from credit towards 5*/PC status. I'd like to change that.

I seem to be using LGA the most these days so it's in my interest to elevate their service. Wish me luck.

MiamiAirport Formerly NY George

Monday night (actually very early Tuesday morning) I had to hunt some to find my car at JFK, it was not parked in a HOD space. No big deal though, it took me a couple of minutes. Now because of a massive tail wind my flight from LAX was 50 minutes early. Called HOD to move up the reservation and the TA had changed the wrong reservation. But another quick call to HOD got the issue very quickly resolved.

One question I have is on the level of gas. I had a car with a little less than 1/4 tank of gas. With Zipcar you are always to leave the car with at least one quarter of a tank or lest you get a very nasty email the next day (which of course is deserved.) I would tend to think that Hertz would prefer to gas up the car at Hertz rather than have a driver pay outrageous priced gas in one of the few remaining Manhattan gas stations.

FlyinHawaiian

This is part of an email I received from HOD Customer Care this morning:

The Hertz mobile app (still branded as Connect) is really good for updating airport rental pick ups on the fly.

platbrownguy

I had an 0500 train out of Washington Union Station Friday morning. I thought I would try out the Hertz on Demand service by picking up a car there the previous evening, driving it home, and then taking that to the train station in the morning (too early for Metro, possibly too early for frequent cabs, and at $35 minus $25 promotional credit, cheaper than cab anyhow).

I reserved the car for 8:15 pm Thursday night at Union Station. At 8:05, I get an email saying that my location has been moved to Maryland Ave & Bladensburg NE (read: ghetto). I call and ask what the deal is, they say that's where I have to pick up a cab from. I had to argue, but the agent reluctantly said I could take a cab and they'd reimburse me. I couldn't understand why this wouldn't be automatically offered, since I was being directed to a location over a mile from any Metro station, after dark, in a sketchy part of town.

I got to the car around 8:30 pm, and couldn't get it to start. I called, and a nicer CSR tries to walk me through the steps. Feeling like a total idiot, I complied, and the engine still wouldn't turn, although the satellite radio worked well . She said I would have to go all the way back toward downtown (12th & N NW). I said I'd have to take a cab, she said she'd put it in the notes.

It took me 20 minutes to hail a cab. Cabs don't go to Maryland Ave & Bladensburg NE after dark. I had to walk a couple of blocks to H Street, where I found one. The cab driver asked me what the hell I was doing in that part of town. I told him. $12 later, he dropped me off at 12th & N. It took me 10 minutes to find the car, because it was behind the address that the CSR had given me. Thankfully, the car worked. I called back to confirm that I could still drop the car off at Union Station. The CSR (same one as I had on the second call) said of course not, I'd have to drop it off where I got it. I restrained myself and explained why on earth I'd reserved the car at Union Station to begin with, and how it had been moved already. She said she'd make notes and take care of it.

Nothing else catastrophic happened. I still got a car, and I still got to Union Station at 4:45. Of course, I had no idea what to do when I got there (are there no signs?), so I just parked it in a regular Hertz spot.

On the website, it showed that I had been double-billed for the full $35 + tax (for both cars). When I called, the lady said I had been credited appropriately, but that credits don't show on the bill. While I'm glad I got credited, I don't see the point of an inaccurate bill.

Summary of my thoughts:
1. There's no way this can compete with ZipCar.
2. Customer service needs to be outstanding for HOD to have a chance. The kind of service I received from the first agent was essentially a deal breaker.
3. There need to be more locations, but that can come with time.
4. Change of location on 10 minutes notice is unacceptable and should come with automatic courtesy credit and profuse apology. ZipCar charges members a late fee ($50 flat) for being even one minute late, but is also very generous with credits when cars aren't there on time or even when they're just parked in the wrong place (like down the block). When these things have happened with ZipCar, I haven't had to ask for credit, it's just been given.

Rant over.

ayton

So, had my first HOD experience today, and it was generally good.

I picked up at the 110 East 16th Street location in NYC. This is a vertical parking structure, so when I arrived I told the attendant I had an HOD vehicle and then waited 10 minutes as he went to go fetch it and bring it out. Definitely need to keep in mind that time lag for the future.

Other than that the car and HOD hardware activated flawlessly. Got my reciept emailed to me within 3 minutes of dropping the car off. Generally good.

Now then, two problems:
1) Whenever I try to book and HOD car for any date, any time, picking up from LGA, it says there are no cars, and the nearest is Hoboken. However, if I being by picking a drop off location near my house and THEN selecting LGA as the pickup in step 2, the website allows it. This obviously needs to be fixed.
2) I agree with FlyinHawaiian, credit towards 5*/PC would incentivise me a LOT more to put up with the glitches in the system.