Originally Posted by davidavid237

I flew into ORD around 7pm tonight and caught a shuttle to the Hertz lot.

The #1 Gold board only had about 10 names on it, so I walked over to the rental office where a line extended out the door. A staff member walking by suggested #1 Gold members go to the Gold office nearby. Several of us walked over there only to find the doors locked and a sign saying the office was closed. We all walked back to the main rental office and got in line.

It took 55 minutes to reach the front of the line. (I estimate there were 50 people in line.) Although they had my reservation in the system, they had to radio someone in the lot to assign a car. I then had to wait another 15 minutes for them to pull a car up to the building. This is the procedure they were using for all customers as far as I could tell.

Customers in line were amazingly civil both with each other and with the Hertz staff. And the Hertz staff did a good job working through the long line of customers.

I asked the Hertz rep if this was what we could expect in the future, and all he said was that we all should "call corporate to complain" as corporate didn't tell the local staff anything.

For me, the top reason to rent from Hertz is their ability to get me to and from my car without any waiting. If this strength of theirs is gone I see no real differentiation between Hertz and several other rental companies, and price will become my main determining factor.