Originally Posted by
frogster
Since we'll have quite a bit of luggage I'll need a full-size car or an SUV with sufficient space in back.
If I understand everything correctly renting either mid-size or full-size would get me access to the ES and basically offer the same selection of cars.
How is the selection & the upgrade handled for the better categories?
Generally speaking, the Executive Aisle have a good variety of cars including full size cars, compact and mid-size SUVs and occasionally higher end vehicles. This forum has threads on many of National locations (esp. major airports) with Flyertalkers reporting back the vehicles available in EA/ES. Here's EWR for example :
Cars at EWR - Page 26 - FlyerTalk Forums
There are certain locations and situations that I would recommend reserving the exact class of vehicle you need. e.g., Denver during peak ski season and you need an AWD SUV. In those cases, my understanding is the after booking the specific class of invoice will reflect that you are charged at one-class lower rate.
You can go ahead and make a dummy reservation for a future date to test it out, there is no cancellation fee for a non-prepaid reservation. Just cancel it fast so that you are not messing up availability for others.