This is one of the most bizarre operations I've encountered. They have both an ES and EA section with about 8 cars each. There's also very small full, premium, specialty as well as upsell sections, each with about a 3-4 car capacity. But here's where it got weird. I'm an ES customer with a Premium reservation. I checked the EA and ES aisles but nothing thrilled me (Altimas, Malibus, Pathfinders, a Sonata and a Camry). But over in the Full section there was a Taurus Limited with the Sirius still active. I checked the key tag and it was actually listed as a PXAR. Perfect. So I get to the exit booth (the only one at this location) and the agent is stumped. First she can't find my reservation. I give her the confirmation number. Then she says I'm supposed to have a minivan. Wrong, my reservation is for a Premium car. She then tells me that they've already run my paperwork and that they have me assigned to a Chrysler 300. How was I supposed to know that? And what happened to picking your own car? Is this Hertz?!

By now, there are cars stacked up behind me and I tell her that I'm quite satisfied with my selection. Exasperated, she starts keying away to trade my car out in the system. The whole ordeal takes about 10 minutes. I ask her why ES customers are being assigned cars when the whole advantage to National is selecting from the aisle. She tells me that this was her manager's idea to save time and speed up transactions. Sounds like a swing and a miss to me.

Hopefully this trial is short lived. If they really want to speed transactions, they'll find a way to add a second exit line. But this location is severely constrained for space so that isn't very likely.