Bad press for Hertz in Business Week
 

The new Business Week (March 2 issue date, received today) is none-too-kind to Hertz.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine...1026559235.htm

Point of the article is that smart companies understand how important it is to provide service that will retain customers during difficult times. Not-so-smart companies cut 4000 employees, eliminate return agents, keep cars past 30,000 miles, etc., etc. I had been willing to tolerate Hertz's premium pricing as the company offered premium service. Looks like that is now a thing of the past.

Like the airlines, Hertz is on a path to destroy customer loyalty by diluting its product. Time to go price shopping.

My company has already shopped around in the US and now has all 3 agencies... sadly for Europe we're still all stuck with an exclusive deal with Hertz till 2010.... lets hope after that we switch away too.

As an example, about 4/5 of my colleagues pick up a car from MANchester in the UK each Monday, around 9.30-10am (peak times). Now there appears to be one overwhelmed agent (even the 2 they had previously had too much work), limited number of drivers to deliver the cars and everyone has to wait between 30mins-1hour to leave. Ridiculous, makes everyone annoyed and there doesn't seem to be a need. I complained, and as a PC they seem to have fixed it so that I always have my car immediately, but, still have to queue to talk to the agent. So many first timers in that queue just ring up their travel agencies and switch to Avis next door which has 2 agents, even though quiet, and get a car before the Hertz one they've booked, either that or complain about ridiculous! I saw one Platinum asking for the manager's number as he had no car and had to wait for 30mins too.... he was treated just the same as any other customer though... not a good idea!

Thanks for the interesting article link!

I find this trend sad.... I am in the process of using up my Gold points for my personal rentals and will probably just move everything to National after that. Nationals service isn't great either, but I was willing to "pay for service" with Hertz. Now I am paying a little more for what??? Apparently not service? So I might as well go cheaper if I am going to get so so to poor service either way!

Just received my Executive card from National on Friday. They will be my primary agency from now on for regular business rentals.

Now I think of Hertz just like I think of Budget, Dollar, and Thrifty: another lesser-service agency that I'll consider when the price is very attractive. I'll weigh every Hertz rental against an identical rental with Exec Aisle and decide whether the costs at Hertz are low enough to make me endure poor service to save money.

For weekend rentals, the CDP/PC codes sometimes make Hertz very cheap, so I'll still be there on occasion. But it's still ironic how a few years ago, I thought of Hertz as the "premium" product and everyone else as the backup alternative if I could save a significant chunk of change.

I too am moving my business elsewhere whenever possible. The lack of Gold service and lack of rental return service negate any positives.

However I did have an excellent HLE experience this weekend, with a choice of a Camry or a Jetta (!! - I have NEVER seen those at US locations). Pick up and return were quick and hospitable. I know that one really cannot compare an HLE to airport service, but my other HLE experiences have always been mediocre or even painful waits.

National will see more of my business in both America and Europe, and I may even go the Sixt route at MUC. :eek: (And if I do go that route I will report back as to my experience after years of poor MUC rentals)

I have two HLE's within 5 miles of my house...both of them are reasonably good. They have Camries but I don't think I've ever seen a WV. We use them when we need a regular car for a roadtrip. Unfortunately, their rates for vans are sky-high. I never see a van sitting in front of either location, so maybe they have to get one from the airport location whenever somebody wants one...I don't know.

I was interviewed by Business Week after they read my thread on BUF, but guess they decided to go with some one else.

No matter.

I do hope that Hertz takes this as a wake up call.

I had another bad BUF HLE rental experience this weekend. That will be my first and last rental with BUF HLE.

In the past month he has returned Hertz cars to the Boston and Minneapolis airports only to find nobody waiting with a handheld check-in device. In Minneapolis, Garber had to drag his bags to the counter to return his car;

I'm surpised they'd do this in a hub city. That's bold. I'd surely hope this was an out-of-hours issues, and not an all-day issue.

I was contacted and asked to contribute after my posts as well but declined due to my busy travel schedule. I also felt that since I didn't rent in January 09 at all (due to my location) I wasn't a fair representation of the wider Hertz 2009 experience.

Like others said, once my company opened up National and Nation/My Company proactively gave me a top-tier status match, I never looked back.

While the service isn't earth shattering better, I consistently get a clean, well appointed car and prompt return. Sorry Hertz, you shot yourself in the foot. Too many dirty 20k+ cars for a PC -- just wasn't my thing.

Moved to Budget
 

Several years ago I switched from Budget to Hertz. Primarily due to lousy service at Budget. At the time the difference in daily rates was about $10, so for the better Hertz service I was willing to pay the price.

In the past year my Hertz daily rental charges started increasing, reaching $72 per day for a full size. For a recent weekly rental Hertz wanted $572, which sent me packing looking for alternatives. For the same rental Budget was under $300. And for my daily rentals? $38 per day.

I like good service, but am not willing to pay double for the privilege. At LAX I quickly discovered the Budget service had not gotten any better. I watched about 20 Hertz buses go by in the 20 minutes before Budget got there. Then I stepped out to get on the bus the surly driver began driving away with me standing in front of the door, claiming not to have seen me (after I flagged him down). I guess that's what I'll have to put up with, but at a 50% discount this is going to be my lot in life.

Try National at LAX. Took them last Monday. Cheaper then Hertz, bus was fine and service as at least on the same leavel as Hertz.

I also have moved on to other options. As I have said in other posts they want you to still pay for the "premium" service they used to offer. All you get now is junk vehicles, no upgrades, no return people, long lines at non canopy locations.

If they want to drop there prices to be a "cheap" rental car place that is fine and I will rent again from them. I will not rent from them again unless I have too until they go back to being awesome or drop prices.

Why rent from Hertz and get a 35K miles, smelly, beat up, no key fob, stripped down vehicle in the class you reserved when I can go to National or Avis or even Dollar or Alamo and get a better car, better service and a better price.

It is a no brainier for me! I don't understand why Hertz doesn't get it!

I totally agree with your post! Hertz has become a joke! I rented 2 cars last week and both cars were filthy and had at least 35K miles on it... The camry had a bad engine noise and the mustang had a bumper about to fall off (yes it was marked on the inspection slip so I didn't worry too much)... Also 1 of the 2 rentals the name wasn't on the board despite being right on time and had to wait behind about 15 people in DFW....

I don't know...I don't really have any major complaints with Hertz. The cars may have more miles on them now than they did two years ago, but they're still in good condition, IME. I seem to be getting a lot of upgrades (as 5*); the best was renting a midsize at SLC for $25/day and getting a Subaru Forrester SUV (good thing, because it snowed in Park City!).

I also don't really notice the premium pricing. Somehow I always seem to find pretty good rates with Hertz (see above), particularly with a USAA CDP.

SLC didn't have any return agents at 10pm (but I don't think they did a year ago either) so I dropped the keys/contract in the box, and of course they tried charging me $75+ for fuel even though I filled the tank, but an email via the website sorted it out no problem.

But if things do get worse, I guess my question is -- how are the loyalty programs with Avis, National or Budget? I get great value from Hertz's free rental certificates and the Manhattan Gold program.

Maybe Hertz at once was premium serivce, however, sadly, it is no longer so.

I've had some service problems with Hertz recently, and have definitely noticed the higher mileage on my rental cars, but like this poster have generally found Hertz's prices better than Avis's or National's, at least. With Hertz having lost the Manhattan location nearest my home (and Avis having moved several blocks further away), I'd be inclined to use National more if I could find a decent discount.

Really, I never found renting from Hertz save me anything from Avis or National. I found National is the cheapest.

Are you talking about West 77th St.? I recall it was supposed to close back in Feburary, but they are still in the system and taking reservations for April. I haven't called to find out the deal, but I'm wondering if they were able to re-sign their lease? I was bummed about the announced closing as well and had to question my loyalty, but then I realized that (1) the 95th St location is easy enough to get to (one stop on the 2/3 express from where I live near 72nd St). and there's a new location on 60th St., only a few blocks' further walk than the 77th location.

Yes, I was, and I thought they'd closed! (I wasn't able to get a reservation there the last time I tried, so this must have changed. I just called Hertz and tried to change my next reservation, and they now show no closing date at all for that location, but unfortunately West 77th is already fully booked that day. So I guess I'll be checking out West 60th St. after all...) But meanwhile I booked reservations at West 77th into mid-summer without problem.
From where I am, West 77th is an easy walk; the other West Side locations are a subway, bus, cab or LOOONG walk away. After 20 or so years of walking over to pick up a rental car, anything else seems inconvenient.
THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR LETTING ME KNOW!

You and I both. I still have close to 50,000 points to drain; however, only 18,000 left that expire at the end of this year. I have actually never taken a free rental from Hertz--it always look to complicated to use those points. However, after Hertz (temporarily) started dropping off LAX customers at arrivals rather than depatures, I had enough. I learned that redeeming those points is easy, so that's what I have been doing every weekend. Once the account is drained, I will switch to another company.

I rent at LAX every week and keep track of rental buses: National consistently does better than Hertz when it comes to frequency of bus arrivals at the terminals.

And I thought I was the only one "counting" buses LOL!

I try to be loyal, but I was pricing out a rental earlier in the week.

Hertz just shy of $300

National Just shy of $100.

Ignoring everything else, they just are not at all competitive in many markets anymore. Last May in Anchorage, they were over 4 times the cost of renting a car from Avis. A fer bucks maybe, but when it's hundreds, well that's another story (and they still had cars available when I arrived, so it was not like they were sold out). To save $200 I'll give up the #1 Gold experience without any trouble at all.

Come on folks - it does work both ways. I had a 1-day rental scheduled for today 4/9 (2nd night of Passover) with Avis for $130 from Manhattan, just about everyone else was sold out. But then I was able to get a 2-day rental from Hertz picking up the day before for $115 - total. Less than half the price. I find plenty of instances where Hertz offers one of the most competitive rates, particularly with the USAA CDP.

FYI, here's the blurb from the latest Hertz email. The folks at the location (who may or may not have the real scoop) said the building was supposed to be torn down to build an apartment building, like what happened to Avis down the block, but in this environment the developers decided not to proceed. Shocker.