opus17

Passed up all the Hyundais and Kias, the HHR and the Saturn and took a Ford Focus with 20,000 miles today.

bocastephen

Rented yesterday - the same crappy garbage as always at this location with a bunch of Malibus sprinkled around to make the aisles look fancier

I took a Corolla with 30k miles because I needed cheap (no gas) and simple transport from Tacoma to SEA the next morning.

opus17

Sunday night -- bunch of Hyundais, no Kias, a lot of Chevys (mainly HHRs & Impalas), one Dodge (they still make those?).

DCAMatt

I can only speak for the Executive Selection. I arrived Saturday night around 9 pm after flying a BWI>ORD>DEN>PHX>SEA one way Mileage Run ( wasn't exactly well rested ). There was of course a number of malibus and Impalas along with one Base Camry and a few base looking Altimas. There was one Buick Lucerne, one Chrysler 300, one Dodge Charger, and a few 09' Ford Taurus Limited. I've rented both the 2009 and older style of Taurus and the brand new one. I took a Taurus. There was nothing exciting about the selection but at least the car I picked up was clean, had less than 15K on the odometer and had leather / sunroof / sat radio.

DCAMatt

So I went back and returned my Taurus rental. I went to pick up a new car tonight around 7pm. The Executive Selection was actually well stocked with better than expected vehicles. It looks like they got a delivery of new vehicles ( mostly Fords ) because I found 5 Ford Trucks / SUV's with less than 10 miles on them! I ended up taking a Ford Expedition EL with 8 miles on it. While there I noticed a VW Routan, a Chrysler Town and Country, a single Malibu, a Chrysler Aspen SUV, a big handful of 4 Door crew Cab Ford F150 Pickups, a 4 door Dodge Ram, and more. Very nice selection if you don't mind bigger vehicles.

Diamondback

Dang! I picked up a car on 1/8 for a week and EA and ES were stock full of Malibu, Charger, etc. and I was looking for a bigger car for this trip.

opus17

Quite a variety this morning, including one HUGE truck, a bunch of SUVs of various sizes, minivans and a lot of Toyotas no one wants to drive.

I took a Ford Focus.

FIKMM

I Had a service issue where they claimed damage to a rental and had to battle for over 3 months. i believe they provide incentives for staff to find damage. i am now a president's circle. Nationla lost all my business due to SLC note this operation is leased to an operator. I would avoid them at all costs.

ElmhurstNick

I have a 5-day, one-way, premium crossover rental with five free days applied to it. Most of the other classes of specialty vehicles are running about $550/week plus tax before the free days are applied, but the premium crossover is the ridiculous amount of $1700/week plus tax. (Of course, I pay just $26.)

My question is: has anybody actually ever seen a premium crossover at SEA? I don't want to sit there and argue with them, I would prefer an Acadia because of the AWD, I'd be happy with a Flex because of the trunk space for golf clubs and suitcases, and I'd settle for a Tahoe or a really nice Volvo like the V70s floating around the mid-atlantic states. What I do not want to hear is "oh, we don't have any, take whatever you want from the ES, or you can have a minivan."

opus17

Right now, I'm in a 37K+ mile Chevy Cobalt which I unwisely chose from the Aisle. What an awful car.

ElmhurstNick

Bump as the trip is getting closer - it's now a 6-day one-way Premium Crossover. At a rental price (pre-coupon) of $1700, I'd expect that they'd find me one even if they have to haul it up from Portland.

I also have to add a second driver. Since this is Emerald Reserve, am I best off going to the counter and getting them to assign me a vehicle there? (I will definitely have my confirmation printed in case they try to give me a runaround.)

Other than the Acacia, Enclave, Traverse tripletes and the Flex, is there anything else which National could slip in there and claim it's a PGAR?

drzoidberg

Anyone rent from the ES here lately? Is the selection still as bad as previously reported?

bocastephen

A couple Friday evenings ago I picked up the only decent car on the Executive lot - a relatively new 300 with XM. Everything else was pretty lame - at least the check-out booth was still open and I didn't have to stand in line while the kiosk crew handed out keys to the nicest cars on the EA/ES lines and leaving the crap for the elite members to fight over.

ElmhurstNick

I forgot to post about my SEA experience. Because the EA/ES is on one floor and everything else is on another, we went to the EA/ES booth even though we had a Reserve selection (premium crossover, 6 free days) because if something else nice was there we would have taken it.

The ES was distressingly empty (a few base sedans and a few minivans) for 10am on a Tuesday, but the staff couldn't have been nicer. We explained that we wanted the Premium crossover for the mix of size (golf clubs), headroom (6'4" and 6'7" drivers), and fuel economy, but we could be flexible about it.

The agent radioed down to the regular reserve, but as I expected, there was nothing appropriate there. The agent asked us what we'd prefer, and I said we'd like a Acadia or Enclave first, Flex second. He told us to relax and they'd bring something up.

It took about fifteen minutes, but eventually an Enclave (sadly without working Sirius) appeared right in front of us. The agent complained profusely about the layout of the different levels, and said that they were hoping that the new facility would take care of some of the problems.

opus17

Unlike a couple of weeks ago, when the only vehicle on the ES was a Kia Sorrento, this morning the ES was loaded with cars -- every single one of them some Chevy sedan or a Chrysler sedan. I took an Impala.