af fp

Hello, whom should I complain to about the Merida affiliate of Hertz? They are such crooks I want to go all the way up to the CEO. After coming to their office with a confirmed reservation from the US Gold call center, they told us they had no car, and to come back five hours later. Five hours later they had a car but five categories above and they wanted to charge an additional $1,000. There was no way I could get them to a decent offer and I am now on a bus. It is so dishonest and so much of my vacation time has been wasted, I am angry at Hertz for doing that to us. They should just have told us that they had no car.

If anyone has the CEO's e-mail address, I will not waste time with a useless customer service barrage.

TerryK

Hertz in Mexico is a licensee: AVASA.

http://www.avasa.com.mx/html/index.htm

af fp

It is still the Hertz brand and I was careful to book with Hertz's people in the USA. How they operate locally should not be my problem.

TerryK

It is not operated by Hertz. Hertz has nothing to do with AVASA other than allowing them to use Hertz name in Mexico and take reservations. IOW, Hertz has no control over AVASA. BTW, Hertz USA can be out of vehicles during peak season as well. Car rental reservations are not guaranteed.

aCavalierInCoach

great I suppose we should take the same attitude with express carriers for airlines. I do hope you are not responsible for any consumer brands I might be invested in, because this attitude destroys brand equity in the long-term.

TerryK

Hertz licensees are rather different from express carriers for airlines. You cannot earn or redeem Hertz Gold Plus Reward points for licensees locations nor can you do one way rentals to/from licensee locations. Yes, I got hit by that. I have not tried one way rentals from Mexico but there are a good number of licensee locations in USA. Licensees also may not honors some CDP and PC discount/benefits.

I do agree that Hertz should have better disclosure for licensee locations as well as its limitations. OTOH, as I mentioned, OP's issue is not restricted to licensee locations. There are several threads about similar issues. For example:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hertz...-remedies.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hertz...alling-me.html

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hertz...ilability.html

I personally once waited for more than one hour at JFK, a Hertz Corporate location, as they had no car available.

Does licensing destroy brand value? That's up for debate.

af fp

Given the story I started this thread with, it clearly destroyed the brand's value for me. And they better have a plan to solve this. Noone has the e-mail address of a higher-up?

TerryK

I do not disagree with you. Nevertheless, Hertz needs to solve this issue for their own corporate locations first.

lougord99

Be careful what you wish for. The plan to solve this is to require a credit card with every reservation and charge you if you fail to cancel at least 24 hours in advance.

Dave Noble

I do not know what you expect Hertz US to solve in regards to a licensee location in Mexico

If it guaranteed that there would be a car available, wouldn't seem that negative a requirement. In order to get the PC/5* benefits , it is necessary to have the credit card in profile and associated with the booking. a 24hr cancellation policy wouldn't be a big issue

aCavalierInCoach

Take action under the license agreement to support the customer and preserve their brand value. I'm not privy to the licensing agreement, but I am certain it is not simply "we pay X to use your name, no strings attached".

cestmoi123

Reports of terrible service and experiences at the Hertz licensees in Mexico are not new. Hertz could certainly tell them "fix X, Y, and Z, or we're cancelling the licensing agreement and either finding a new partner or doing it ourselves." At the very least, they can threaten to not renew.

af fp

As an FYI, I did raise the issue high up, in detail, and the matter is being taken care of. Will that change the attitude of the licensee? I am not sure but the pain I had to deal with justified more than filling up a customer service form, which I would have done had the matter been less significant (e.g. inaccurate billing or minor car malfunction).

TerryK

Same issue just happened at SFO, a Hertz corporate location.

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/hertz...-feb-13th.html

Antonio8069

I don't agree, TerryK, that this is a Hertz-wide problem. As the thread suggests, and the quote above confirms, this issue has to do with Hertz in Mexico.

I too had problems this week at Hertz in Cozumel. It was not a shortage of cars, but the failure to honour the rental rate and the pick up arrangements i.e. I arranged for a pick-up at the cruise port, and the Hertz rep was a no show. So I took a taxi to the airport. Also, the car was old and damaged.

As per af fp, I will raise this with Hertz customer service. I will be very surprised if they don't resolve it to my satisfaction.