Originally Posted by
seawolf
FWIW, I was told by HLE in NJ they cannot rent out certain premium classes (BMW 5er) even if it means sitting on HLE lot for a week waiting for Hertz to send a driver to return back to LGA/EWR/JFK.
Yes, hertz currently has a nationwide hold on all of the BMWs at HLEs. I know the reason but I afraid I might not be able to disclose it here as I met one of the area manager who happens to work out of the HLEs that I rent from often and he told me the reason.
But yes, for now all BMWs are airport locations only. Other luxury cars are fine for now.
And to OP, HLEs have a formula where they have different depreciation for class of cars, and if you happen to book a lower class but exceed the depreciation for the specific car the managers are allow to free upgrade you whereas say if you book a premium or luxury class if the rate is too low HLEs are trained to downgrade you and give you a credit/free gas rather than free upgrade you into a prestige car.
For airport location they have a different method of calculation where they just take the fleet they have and total depreciation and use the total revenue against the depreciation to compare profit therefore they can give out the nicer upgrades.