Rented [MENTION=107050]DCA[/MENTION] last week. It was raining heavily when I returned the car. Not much fun with Avis DCA's off site outdoor lot. There is a small open tented area (think 10'x10') next to where shuttle picks up though a sizable puddle (9'x9') had materialized under the tent. When I said to the attendant that 'we're really missing Garage A right now' he replied "just wait until it snows". A minute of silence followed while we both envisioned a snow & slush filled lot, wrestling wet wheeled luggage into a snow covered car, the lot's exit onto a residential street, etc. Oy. Then he said "only five more years of this" meaning the MWAA garage contract that Avis/Sixt were bidding on (and Sixt won) lasts for five years. I said that Avis should have bid higher & what was up with that anyways? Why didn't corporate authorize a "we need that garage space contract no matter the cost" bid? As it was told to me, the employee who was responsible for the bidding didn't consult Corporate on this and no longer works for ABG (ahem). Guess how much business has dropped off since the offsite move: ~ 50%!!! ie from 1000 daily turnover to 500 ... ouch. Nevermind the extra costs of setting up the shuttle bus service and the staff turnover. The physical limitations of using the tiny off site lot might be part of it - there are only so many cars you can run through that space compared to the garage operation.

He mentioned offhand that he heard 'Sixt wasn't doing so well'. Which I didn't pay much attention to at the time, but it came to mind now that I'm booking an upcoming rental at DCA (which is $300+ for 4 day rental - this was after going through all of my best awd codes) so I thought 'what they hey - if that's the case maybe Sixt has some deals (and nicer cars that aren't Malibus). And they do. Plus they status match Avis.

There's a business school case study in here somewhere.