Originally Posted by
iahphx
...Yeah, I kind of think Avis and Hertz are more like "one company" and National is more like a collection of franchisees from different countries. I called the National office by the Avignon TGV (unfortunately, the city office was closed on Sundays) and the agent there was nice, but couldn't help me.
Enterprise now owns National, hence the difference compared to Avis or Hertz. Presumably your rate is also substantially cheaper; I rent a lot from National and Hertz and there is definitely a big difference with Hertz having much better service for things like this.
A surprising number of new cars no longer have a spare tire; it is partly to save space and weight, and partly to discourage self-service tire changes. Some cars are now designed to require special jacks and even wheels. So it is somewhat common in Europe not to have a spare tire. Even in the US many rental cars have damaged/incomplete spare tires or missing jacks -- I've stopped checking since it is so common, and not fixable at the rental office. On the plus side, tires are a lot tougher and punctures are rarer than used to be.