jetsfan92588

Booked a luxury car on National's website at JFK.

Get to JFK (wasn't flying in so I took an uber there for the sole purpose of renting the car).

Get to the National location, tell them I have a reservation for a luxury car - guy says go ahead and take the Audi.

I get in the car, get to the checkout booth and the lady asks me "did you tell them you booked the car within the last 24 hours?" I told her no, but the thought that I should've mentioned it to them honestly didn't even cross my mind.

They tell me, even though I'm executive elite, they're not giving me any car. I offer to take whatever car they have - the agent (and now manager as well) say no - "the cars in the lot are for people with reservations." I respond "I have a reservation" to which the manager replies (and I'm not kidding about this - it is a direct quote) "no... we're not honoring your reservation." He tells me they have a lot of people who are coming in tomorrow that need cars.

After further conversation he informs me "you're not alone, we've had to tell this to about 40 other customers."

National wasted a ton of my time, and failed to fulfill its obligations. I ended up getting a last minute reservation from Hertz.

What's the appropriate compensation here? It has to be more than the difference between the National and Hertz rate. They could've mitigated harm very easily by calling as soon as they saw the reservation come in. It's a exec elite reservation for a luxury car - that must get someone's attention. When I rent cars at other locations, they have the keys ready for me when I arrive - sometimes an hour early.

Yellowjj

I would contact National customer service. In my experiences they go above and beyond for members.

It's a shame you didn't book 24 hours before because then it would have been guaranteed as a Exec Elite. That would have been interesting if they had attempted to deny you.

AutoSlash

It sounds like this was an outlier situation where National didn't exercise proper inventory control and let reservations be booked for a time when they knew they were already sold out. The fact that they were not willing to give you any car at all means they were way over capacity. This is likely a failing on the part of the local management team.

I agree with Yellowjj that you should contact National customer service ASAP about the situation. They should provide you with some level of compensation for the out-of-pocket money, and hopefully the inconvenience as well.

jetsfan92588

Thanks, already in contact with some higher level of customer service (they called it something different, but I could also tell by the guy on the phone that he wasn't just a regular customer service rep).

I think in this instance, I'm the insane one - I've never had a normal/decent experience at the JFK National, yet I keep renting from them.

nicemann

Let us know what customer service will do for you. It's crazy that JFK being as big as it is has no cars available at all especially for some that has a reservation, no matter when it was made.

aww3583

Following mainly for the corporate level response.

As a side note, the last two times I was in PNS, there were signs posted at the National and Enterprise desks saying "No walk-ups. All reservations must be made 24-hours in advance. No exceptions."

I'm still waiting for a response regarding a vehicle complaint I submitted almost 4 weeks ago. Both times I've emailed asking for an update, the boilerplate response is "we've forwarded your comments to the appropriate regional manager."

National's email customer care team makes Hilton's look stellar.

Closingracer

Last time I was there they were empty and I had a luxury res I made a week prior. I was in there and overhead someone asking about a res for one day as a walk in and they couldn't help them. I also had a backup full size res for the aisle and literally nothing was there other than like 3 mini vans, a few mid size suvs and a few full size cars. I ended up in a Q7 only because they had no luxury cars there.

dwbf11

Maybe you could have canceled your backup as a courtesy to the customer you overheard, since you knew you wouldn't be using it?

And if a $60,000+ German SUV isn't "Luxury" enough for you, maybe you should consider renting from another agency? That's a nice upgrade from the Cadillac XTS LCAR you had booked and seems like they did you a big favor.

MattEvan

To get the US-based reps push 6!

Closingracer

I did cancel the backup res. It was also 2 different reservations weeks apart. The XTS was at LGA and the Q7 was in JFK.

PV_Premier

same thing has happened to me before on National reservations made less than 24 hours in advance at a few places. i think this is more of a gap on their IT than it is lack of management locally with the branches, as i've personally seen a manager call corporate and read them the riot act over it.

jackal

It comes down to the fact that there is no direct link between existing inventory and reservations. It's not like airlines, where there are 180 seats in inventory on a 737 and each booking decreases available inventory by one. The reservation system is set to periodically (often with the manual assistance of a rate analyst) look at several factors when determining rates and inventory (competing rates, fleet utilization, etc.), but it's not linked up directly.

There's a bit of history, there. Back in the days before "counter automation systems" (the computers that every rental car office uses these days), it was all a very manual process. The reservation center would take reservations (via the 1-800 numbers or via travel agents) and then literally fax them to the locations. The locations would then have to update their local records and calendars. If the local management decided availability was getting tight, it was up to them to call into the rate department and file a new, higher rate plan or to call them and tell them to block new reservations.

(It was entirely possible for someone to call into 1-800-Budget and book 20 reservations for minivans, even if the location only had 5 minivans in stock. By the time Budget faxed the 20 minivans reservations to the location and the location noticed and called to block inventory, it was too late: those reservations were confirmed. That is something that is still very possible today.)

So, because of the incredible fluidity of the fleet (no-shows, walk-ups, extensions, failures to return on time, returned vehicles needing maintenance or body shop repair, etc.), in that situation, it's somewhat impossible to plan for an exact number of cars to be available. So sometimes the rental location would run out of cars, but no one at the reservation center actually knew it yet, leading to an excess of cars being booked beyond what the location can actually service before reservations were successfully blocked off.

Counter automation systems helped tremendously. Managers can now manage much larger fleets and run reports throughout the day to check on availability (rather than working with whiteboards and paper calendars), and dedicated rate analysts can adjust rates far more frequently and help to match supply and demand. But the systems still largely operate the same way they did before: someone has to monitor the fleet inventory and tell the reservation system to update rates or block inventory. It's still not directly linked.

And because it's not directly linked, the same thing can happen today that did decades ago. And the rental industry, being really bad at IT, has never bothered to address it.

I get all that. I understand the limitations of the systems probably better than just about anyone in or out of the industry. I still think it's inexcusable.

This is 2017. There is no reason why the systems cannot be overhauled and linked up so this kind of thing doesn't happen. The reservation system should be able to check in real-time (or, at worst, maybe hourly) what the current projected inventory is. Thresholds could be set to account for unexpected things like extensions and oil changes and damages. The fact the rental industry refuses to do this is testament to how badly their IT systems are managed and how little they think they need to invest in them.

When people get a confirmation number and nowhere in any documention is it notated that something booked less than 24 hours before pick-up is not guaranteed, it's 100% the rental companies' faults. They should be held to task for allowing the reservation to be booked and choosing to accept the booking rather than spend the money to reprogram their systems so that reservations that can't be honored don't get booked in the first place. Local managers shouldn't have to (or be allowed to) invent arbitrary, unpublished rules about which reservations will be honored; they should all be honored, and those that can't should be accommodated with other companies at no additional cost to the customer (just like airlines are required to do).

It drives me nuts when I see reports that people show up at rental counters only to be told there's nothing that can be done. That is the ultimate cop-out, and I hope that the rental industry can be held to task on this and that this stops being a thing.

Anyway, I, too, am curious to see what National corporate has to say. I've had mixed experiences with EHI customer service; they're really proactive on the front end but can be hit or miss on the back end. Keep us updated.

jetsfan92588

They rep said 48 hours but still no call. How long should I wait before following up?

Not sure if it's a different system and I generally don't like Hertz, but after waiting in a line for about 10 min (probably because all the people from National had to come over) I decided to just make a reservation on the app. I stepped out of line and about 2 minutes later I hear on their radio: "[jumbled words] 55". Then I get an email about telling me my car is in stall 55.

BugsyPal

Have said this before, and unless things have changed am doing so again; National still relies heavily upon scheduled returns when locations are factoring inventory. Obviously if those vehicles do not come back on time or even that day, things get out of whack.

Also yes, have been at a location (airport or otherwise) when they are not only totally sold out, but are scrambling to find inventory for a very long line of customers. In walks one or two more people waving their "guaranteed" reservation made only a few hours before. Equally yes managers go mad (to put it nicely), and no one can understand why it is allowed to happen.

IMHO if this turns out to be true, then National should really begin a major overhaul of their reservation system to take into account all these on the fly changes that seem to keep on coming.

Often make reservations for airport locations with < 24 hour notice. If I get out to LGA or JFK and someone pulls a stunt like this, then you'll probably going to see me on the evening news!

After paying for a taxi or whatever to get out to airport location am not going to be turned away empty handed just because made reservation less than 24 hours ahead. Especially when the system generates a "guaranteed" reservation confirmation. No, that I cannot have.

BugsyPal

I'd call again if no response within next day or so. Also did you post your issue to National's FB page?