Poor experience at O'Hare
 

Last week I reserved a car at hertz.com at O'Hare for Thursday at 10 a.m. It was a 2-day rental, returning on Saturday. Hertz.com quoted me a weekend rate of $26 per day for a mid-size. I made the reservation.

My flight got in a little early and I arrived at the O'Hare Hertz facility about 9:30 a.m. My name's on the gold board, and I go to my car. It's a Corolla, so I didn't get a great 5* upgrade (no surprise), but I like Toyota cars generally, so I was still pretty pleased. But, I notice that the rental agreement on the hang tag lists the price of the rental at $85 per day.

I went to the Gold counter, where the attendant tells me there's nothing she can do (she's not allowed to change rates) and I have to go to the main customer counter. At the main counter, the agent tells me that I am "gaming the system" by arriving early and that to get a weekend rate I can't pull out the lot until after 10 a.m.

Huh? I told her that I made a reservation on hertz.com and I got in a little early--I don't even know what qualifies for a weekend rate. I just got a good rate and booked it. She said that I'll have to wait until 10 a.m. I said that I'd wait if that's what it takes, and she then says, "OK, I'll change it for you this time, but next time, you should know you can't do this."

OK, folks, I'm confused. Did I do something wrong here? Am I wrong to think I got some poor customer service here? I mean, the hangtag was already printed with the $85 rate. Would they have run out right at 10 a.m. and changed the hangtag to a lower rate? If so, then I guess I have less to complain about.

Anyway, I've almost always had great service from Hertz, so this one kind of sticks out like a sore thumb. It's the "gaming the system" comment that really bothered me, I guess.

I'd be interested to hear any comments.

Sounds more like ORD Hertz was trying to game you.

I always check my contract before I start the car just to make sure. So far, it's always been on the mark, but never hurts to check in my view.

I thought the weekend rates began at 12PM?

Anyways, yeah, ORD is a hassle. They do have a nice selection of cars, but they're always busy it seems and don't like to do upgrades.

I believe the "weekend" rate is supposed to begin at noon Thursday and I believe requires a Saturday keep, so the ORD station might very well have run the contract at the "weekday" rate.

So perhaps the Hertz computer muffed it, but if it spit out a confirmation at that rate, Hertz is bound to honor it (especially if a corporate-owned site, which I imagine ORD would be).

Or it's some special promotion they're running at ORD. At which point it shouldn't matter what the pick-up time was.

I find it hard to believe that they would preprint a wrong rate in case you came early. It sounds like they made a mistake, to me.

This was then coupled with them not admitting the mistake. Their first reaction was to assume that they didn't make a mistake, and try to explain the higher rate. (Chances are it wasn't the person you talked with that made the mistake.) It seems very unprofessional to me that they would accuse you of gaming the system because a flight was 30 minutes early.

Very poor customer service, but not all that surprising to me. I've rented at GSO the past two weeks, and they tried to "game" me both times. First time on a coupon, second time on gas. This is becoming more and more prevalent.

By the way, Hertz typically begins weekend rentals at noon on Thursday. However, whatever rate came up on Hertz.com should've been honored, no questions asked. The clerk's comments to you were total BS.

Uh, huh.

Since your car was already in the stall, with the rental agreement hanging from the rear view mirror....I can;t help but wonder what the doofus you talked to would have done if you'd said, "OK, I'll wait until 20 minutes after my flight was supposed to land and see if the print on this agreement magically changes to my original booking rate!"

If they're trying to "game" you, you'd think they would at least put a little more thought into it. ;)