Emerald Club during Coronavirus
 

What are people seeing with Emerald Club during Coronavirus? Are you still able to skip the counter?

At my local location (an "Emerald Booth in garage" location) you no longer get to skip the counter. One clerk at the National/Alamo counter and for some reason despite the airport being largely deserted, this counter had a line of 4 customers. The Enterprise counter was open with one very bored employee and nobody was there. But once you finally get assisted, it is good. You are still asked to select your vehicle (through the verbals that the counter agent offers you).

What I find ironic is they closed the National Booth in garage and Alamo Booth in garage, but the Enterprise Booth in garage is still open. I don't know why they can't just provide the National "skip the counter" service through the Enterprise Booth. The Booths are all within a few dozen steps of each other.

Hopefully can see volumes increase again and staffing increase. At this point attempting to run 3 different brands on the staff counts that you'd have for one brand (what I saw was basically 1 counter agent at Alamo/National, 1 agent at Enterprise, 1 agent in Enterprise booth, a manager, and 1 agent going between returns and cleaning vehicles with the manager covering for returns). On a typical day this operation would have 30+ people working across all the different areas.

At SAN a few weeks ago (last time I was there, as I'm just Ubering now 'cause there's "nowhere to go" :() I went upstairs to the EC lot to witness a zillion cars stacked to the rafters, and one guy there who was pretty much "grab what you want"- probably could have snagged the Maserati if it wasn't boxed in 4 cars deep :)

MCI was business as usual. Keys in cars on aisles. Only difference was packed cars in storage and overflow lot was roped off. Aisles were not full and cars were dusty from sitting on the lot for so long.

FAT kept the keys with the booth agent since the exit gate was just kept open. They checked you out at the Enterprise/Alamo booth.

EWR aisle are operating as usual, although only 1/3 full. I was surprised there were so few cars on site (overflow lot totally empty) so they must have moved the cars to some other location. The manager told me they "de-fleeted" although I can't imagine them actually selling any cars on the used market right now.

Interesting observation. I noticed something similar when I drove by my closest Enterprise. Last time, the parking lot and driveway were bursting full. Today, almost all the cars were gone. But to where? Are any dealers or manufacturers buying large quantities of used rental cars now?

At RNO, the National/Alamo/Enterprise garage space is about 50-65% full with vehicles. The return lanes are all empty. There is an off garage building that is not open to the public near the Air National Guard Station that has an Alamo/National sign and that lot of packed full of thousands of vehicles and the dirt beside it is packed to the gills literally with vehicles.

It appears what the airport location is doing is just working with the vehicles in the garage that come and go and letting the vehicles off site sit "off site." Their staff is so limited I don't think they have the manpower to move vehicles around to keep the garage space full, as they used to do.

Just comparison shopped a week-long rental... apples-to-apples:

Dollar: $223
Thrifty: $223
Budget: $226
Avis: $227
Hertz: $266
Ace: $249
Alamo: $261
Enterprise: $276
National: $390

I talked to the branch manager of the airport I most-frequently rent from, and she said they've laid off almost everyone. Most of their fleet is parked off-site. Some upgrades are available, but it depends on who's working the desk at pick-up. They're targeting the business traveler who is less focused on price.

Did you get those quotes through AutoSlash or manually run them?

At PIT, there are hundreds, maybe 1000+, EHI cars parked nose-to-nose in the far end of the extended parking lot. They even have the hang tags in them with the barcode, mileage, and "serviced by" notes so they were cleaned before being stored away. I imagine local Enterprises are having cars sent to local airports or similar places that can store large numbers of cars.

AutoSlash

National last-minute specials gave me some good rates 2 weeks ago. I got $97 per week with taxes included for a pick-up at FAT. This week, the rates are back up to $250+ even with the last-minute special discount.

I doubt any dealers or manufacturers are buying used rental cars now (other than program cars, which Enterprise has very few of). The auction market is basically frozen. And the manufacturers are trying to conserve as much cash as possible as they are burning billions of cash per month. (Ford and Chrysler can't survive beyond year end if all production is stopped).

National/EHI cut off AutoSlash in January, so AutoSlash can only provide the full retail price. National also seems to have eliminated their best coupons. It was a dumb move by National, because all the people who rented through AutoSlash saw the rates skyrocket and stopped renting with them. I'm willing to pay 10-20% more for National, but anything more than that I go to Hertz.

DTW is my most frequent location. My most recent rentl I noticed that the National lot wasn't stacked full any longer. The nearby Enterprise location had been consolidated into the National/Alamo lot. The Enterprise lot was stuffed full. But I've also heard that all the major companies have moved thousands of cars to Willow Run airport for storage.

I doubt many fleet cars have gone to auction yet. If the rental companies send more than usual, its just going to depress sale prices. But I can imagine they'll be buying fewer cars next year as the business slowly rebuilds.

As of (approximately)?