Originally Posted by
ezak
I only said the above because I was told NOT to stroll the aisle, which is why this confused me.
When I exited the elevator and made eye contact with the agent, I said "shall I go take a look first" and was told "no please wait in the line here". That's the reason I thought maybe they're changing the protocol. And FWIW there wasn't anyone waiting behind me.
Nope, not a policy change. I know this location fairly well (been in a rental car daily from HNL for over 1 year now) and have had contact with many of the agents/managers there.
The bottom line: you can absolutely walk the aisle and pick out a few options to bring to the booth. BUT some agents are less friendly than others. It's probably easier for them to assign you a car than for you to try to tell them what car you want. Maybe they had a bad day or just doesn't want the hassle.
And from an agent's perspective, here's why. You let a customer walk the aisle, then a huge flight comes in and a line starts to form. The next customer walks up and picks out a car from the booth, while you're waiting for the other customer to come back only to find your picked car is taken because people are coming in. And now it becomes more chaotic/annoying. Angry customers and frustrated agents.
They may be trrying to head that off since you never know when it'll get busy.
I've been there on VERY off times (6am and 9pm) where there's very low chance of a busy line, and I've had no issue walking the aisle. In the end its YMMV.
When they finally finish the new rental car facility, it should be like a traditional aisle experience and a smoother/easier experience overall I think