12/29/2022 - LIH

Made a reservation at both Avis and Hertz . Liability comes standard with my company’s Avis AWD so renting there is preferred. Booked a full size sedan at Avis. Noticed a lot of people waiting for cars after arriving via the rental car shuttle. No car was assigned to me through the app which is rare in my experience. From my judgement, there appeared to be a LOT of cars in the lot with a shortage of employees to clean them. I overheard folks waiting up to 2 hours for their car. While waiting in line I noticed several people ahead of me getting not so great cars.. Malibu, Optima. In the Avis app there was still an option to select a different car class for my existing reservation, so in hopes of getting something nicer I chose Intermediate SUV. The problem was that the staff weren’t using their computers to assign cars and instead referring to an existing printed out piece of paper (!) to look up reservations, so they had no idea I had already switched categories and insisted briefly that it was not possible I booked an SUV. I was assigned an Altima but after asking if they could please double-check the car class I booked was finally assigned a 2021 Jeep Compass Trailhawk. Nothing to speak of for Preferred Plus upgrades, but I would have been happy with a Compass.

But of course just like many other customers, my car was not ready and was “being cleaned”. After waiting 30 minutes and not knowing how much longer it would be, I walked across the street to Hertz who had assigned me a car for my full size sedan reservation (however, no gold alert) which was a 7 seater brand new Chevy Traverse. Not wanting such a large car (there were just 2 of us) I scoped out the lot and asked if I could have one of the 2 Challengers parked in the pickup stalls. After the agent double checked that one was not already reserved I was given the ok to take one! (not sure if having PC played a role here) Handled great and was a joy to drive around the island. I overheard other renters asking for a larger or smaller car and the staff appeared to do whatever they could to put folks in to the car they desired.

Conclusion: Hertz (vs. Avis) at a small airport operation such as Lihue clearly has a lot more leeway to go above and beyond. Friendlier staff and overall smoother operation. Will possibly not bother with Avis in the future unless the app pre-assigns me a car.