I rented an SUV for last weekend, 3/10-13, pick-up at 7pm, drop off Sunday at noon.
Upon arrival, I realized I hadn't printed out my reservation (!), and had NO IDEA even which company I'd reserved with. I always use Hertz Gold counter, and for the last 5 years, have NEVER had a problem. So, I kind of got used to just expecting my car to be there, with no issues.
But because of a tennis tournament at Indian Wells, Hertz was asking $76 a day for an economy car! A little rich for me, so I ended up booking with Alamo ($115 for 3-day SUV rental).
But since I didn't remember who I'd booked with, I started waiting in each line to ask if I had a reservation. Alamo/National (Same desk), Avis, Dollar, Enterprise, Budget: All said no, I didn't have a res. And there weren't ANY cars available at all, from any agency!
Hmm.....so what's a boy to do? I opened up my laptop and paid the $8 access fee, only to see the following on hotmail: "This page is temporarily unavailable"! Huh?? I've NEVER seen that page, and now, of all times, I can't access my mail.
OK, so then I called 800 directory, and started calling the agencies. It was now about 90 minutes since I'd landed, and still nowhere.
Suddenly, Alamo said they had my res! Umm... the friendly agent gave me my Confirmation Number, and I walked back to the Alamo/Nat'l counter, which was by now deserted. At first, she told me that I'd told her the wrong name (it's my last name, so I think I told her correctly). To be honest, when I came to the counter, she was preoccupied with a phone call, and I think just overlooked my res. I didn't ask for any compensation, since I was just glad to have a car in high season in PSP.
Anyway, when she realized she'd missed seeing the res, she apologized profusely, and offered me an upgrade to an SUV (which I'd already booked), so then she offered a $10 discount, which I accepted. She handed me the keys to a Rendezvous, in stall #5. I lugged my stuff outside to find....no car there.
Trudging back, her coworker, thinking I was mistaken, walked me back outside, but just before the doorway, said, "Wait! This is the dirty car we couldn't find all day today! I wonder where these keys came from??". So we walked back to the counter. Again. This time, without my asking for anything, they raised the discount to $25.
Finally, I was on my way with more keys, which turned out to be a V8 Chevy Trailblazer, which was parked next to a Jeep Grand Cherokee. I ended up going back and asking for the Grand Cherokee, since it was a V6 and gas prices are about $2.47 per gallon of regular unleaded. They gave it to me, after we waited about 10 minutes for the keys to arrive (the lot attendant had them).
I was actually reasonably happy with the result, though not too impressed with the efficiency. I was happy they tried to make the customer happy on the spot (trying an upgrade, and then, when that wasn't going to work, a discount).
Of course, this entire fiasco could have been avoided--if I'd remembered the stupid print-out of the res. So, don't forget your print-outs!