Denied Car Class Booked Because of Snow Tires - Where to complain
 

I flew in to eastern Canada yesterday. I had booked a standard car class (VW Jetta or similar). Walking to the car area I see a Jetta there. Just what I booked. Perfect.

Arrived at counter. I was asked if I wanted snow tires. I can appreciate the upsell, but I didn't want the $20 a day. I was then denied what I booked because the Jetta had snow tires. She didn't have anyone to go get a car without them. There was nothing better so I was stuck wtih a very small Chevy Trax. Basically, I was downgraded because the car I booked wasn't available.

I booked the car on my flight there. I was talked down to and told that if I booked earlier, the car I booked would have been there. I'm not sure why their website would show a car available when it is not.

I called Hertz customer support. After one 20 minute call nobody got back to me. Then they said the manager of the facility would call me back in 15-30 minutes. There was only one staff working.

What's the best venue to complain here? I wasn't asking for anything. I just wanted the car I had booked.

Most folks are under the misperception that a confirmed reservation means they have an actual vehicle allocated for you. Unfortunately, this is not the case. Similar to airlines, car rental companies often overbook, especially since in many cases, car rental reservations are not secured via a credit card and can have no-show rates up to 30%. As such, their inventory systems will typically overbook to a certain degree, and further more, they aren't always real-time.

In your particular case, you can try to get some sort of compensation out of them, but it will probably be an uphill battle. It all depends on how vigorously you want to pursue it and how much your time is worth. Probably not the answer you wanted to hear, but just trying to be honest in terms of what you can expect based on our 10+ year of dealing with this sort of thing.

In this case though, they weren't overbooked. They just had either a Jetta with snowtires immediately available or a Jetta at an off-site lot that nobody could go get. Any idea of where at Hertz corporate I can complain?

I'd start with customer service.

There is no compensation for this. Possibly a discretionary customer service gesture.

What OP wanted was effectively a free upgrade, e.g. free snow tires and didn't get it.

The OP didn't want a free upgrade, he wanted what he booked. If they didn't have that, then I would expect them to err on the side of an upgrade rather than a downgrade. If i had booked an intermediate, but they only had full-size or economy, I would expect them to give me the full size, and I certainly would be upset it they said I had to take the economy with no reduction in price.

Agreed. They should have either given the OP what he booked, or if that was not available, then he should have gotten the Jetta with snow tires as a comp upgrade. That's the way it works (or at least should have worked). He should theoretically be eligible for some sort of customer service gesture to make up for the failings of Hertz, but getting something out of them may be an uphill battle.

imo, i feel like you have a fair chance at receiving some sort of comp. this is def not standard protocol, and im sure if you politely explain what happened to the branch manager, you'll come out with a victory!

The Trax is very small, it's built on the same platform at the Chevy Sonic, which is the example car for the Compact class at Hertz Canada. It's definitely a downgrade from a Standard, and I'd argue from an Intermediate as well.

Pricewise, the 2019 Trax starts at C$20,900, while the 2019 Jetta starts at C$20,995.

Ive never seen the Chevy Trax in the USA, is it only sold in Canada?

The size isn't really the issue. Looking on website, a Jetta is a group D vehicle - what group us the Chevrolet Trax? that a Sonic is a B does not mean that the Trax is a B

If the Trax was a D or higher group, then the location provided what it could be expected to do; given the prices listed being withing $1000 for Trax and Jetta , seems quite feasible that they are both group D cars

National classifies the Ford EcoSport, which is a similar car, as a "compact full-size", so it's possible that Hertz would consider the Trax an upgrade.