sokolov

I have been a happy Hertz Gold Rewards member for over a decade. Recently, I extolled about the virtues of Hertz to a friend, who used to rent with Enterprise.

As a result, she booked a oneway rental with Hertz, F class, from YVR, and joined the Hertz Gold Rewards club. I accompanied her for the pickup. We expected to go through some formalities, because she was new to the rewards program, and then go to the Gold Choice section and pick a vehicle. Something large, because we had lots of luggage.

Not so much.

The YVR station refused to add her membership number to the contract - unless she signed a totally new contract at some walkup airport oneway rate (AKA highway robbery). And because there was no membership on the contract, they refused to let her take a car from the Gold Choice area.

They even told her to go back in line, because we had arrived at the counter via the Gold Rewards line. (Which didn't make much of a difference, but it sure doesn't help to make a first good impression.) Yes, she was a member, but that was not noted on that contract, so no privileges for her. She was also told that she would not earn any points.

They provided a car that was surprisingly small for an F and had fixed back seats - so there was not enough space for the luggage. My friend was forced to pay up for an SUV.

I was very surprised, because I remember adding my Gold Rewards number during pickup in the past.

My friend was not impressed. Good news for Enterprise, I guess.

Dave Noble

It doesn't seem too surprising.

When the booking was made, it would have indicated in the email "standard counter"

if wanting gold benefits for the rental, would it not have made more sense to add it to the booking before turning up or to have signed up and got the membership number before making the booking?

Snacky

I'm a bit confused about this, as even when I make a booking logged in to hertz.com as a Gold Rewards President's Club member, I still get "Standard Counter" printed on my booking. How can I make sure my booking is a "Gold Rewards" one?

On my last pickup at LAX, this was also the case, but the Gold Rewards agent "sorted me out", and said I wasn't registered in their system as a Gold Rewards renter yet because it was my first rental, and added that it would be solved for my next rental. Not so ...


Snacky

Cymro

It sounds as though the renter did sign up and got the membership number.

As the Hertz website doesn't allow you to update a reservation with a membership number, it would have taken a call to do so - it's not unreasonable to expect that the rental station would be able to do that, at least provided it was a direct booking and not via an OTA.

AutoSlash

Clearly Hertz dropped the ball here. It does sound like the whole experience was a bit of a [mess]. All of that said, the fatal flaw here for your friend was signing up but not actually using the number to make the reservation.

That said, they should have just applied it on the spot. Sounds like you got a bad apple of an agent (or more than one). The folks at Hertz YVR may be in need of a bit of attitude adjustment.

sokolov

Yes, that would have made sense. However, new customers are, by definition, not versed in the ins and outs.

I think she actually called Hertz beforehand and asked them to add the membership number to her rental, but was unsuccessful there. However, I was not privy to that phone conversation, so I focused on what happened when we were at the YVR counter.

That may be the case. It could also be a "service limitation" enforced by some IT system. Or a combination thereof.

From a customer experience point of view it doesn't matter a whole lot much who is to blame for the underwhelming experience.