vrbaba

National already carries Toyota Camrys and Nissan Altimas. Impala LTs and LTZs are what you usually find on the Exec Aisle, and those are much better than POS. Overall, National has probably the best 'regular' selections. Hertz and Avis might have some better 'cool' car selection, but getting a Camry, LTZ, G6 Coupe GT, Altima with 'my' choice guaranteed (which includes Sat radio) and paying only a midsize rate, I can not complain.

Tuneman1984

+1

I'm not a naive customer, in that I know the economy is affecting all aspects of the business and they need to cut costs. But they shouldn't do it at the expense of their regular customers which, by nature, is what EE's are.

If they need to order more basic vehicles to get by, that's fine. But give them to Joe the weekend renter who's standing in the rent a car center with the little wading pool ring around his waist already and no Emerald Club card. Then when an EE shows up who spends more time at your station that his own living room, have a car with at least the bare necessities available, by that I mean power windows and locks, and ABS.

One of the things I loved about National was their wide variety of selection. I would show up even at a counter and get offered 6 or 7 different vehicles for the midsize rate. Nowadays it's just Sonata after Sonata, now with no XM as they've all been in-fleet for 3 months. I used to like getting a Focus SES with leather, moonroof, and working Sirius.

I'm fearing if National continues down this path, they'll start to suffer Hertz's fate. As I'm sure many of you have read on the boards over there, they cut costs agressively while keep their rates high, thus alienating most of their frequent renters. Avis gutted their top-tier program and started keep cars on far past the 30k mark, and many people are jumping ship there.

I know National is in a good standing right now, and I'm far from wanting to bail (I have about 15 res's with them through until July), but I just hope they don't get to a point that they're seen as "cheap". I've always seen National as one of the top-crop agencies and they should stay that way.

badger2

It's been a few months, but I'ver always been able to pick up nice new Volvo station wagons in SEA as Exec Elite and only pay for mid-size.^

Diamondback

I've rented from a local Enterprise shop a couple times and would have to echo the comments here. They went over the car very closely in looking for dings and scratches. I did find their customer service very high -- prompt service, checking in with me during the rental, verifying everything was okay, etc. I did find the cars were older and with higher mileage.

rentalguy

You will be seeing alot more Toyota, Nissan and especially Kia's and Hyundai. There will be the ususal mix of Ford, GM's Chrysler, but no where near the volume there has been in the past. Each region will have some other local purchase agreements in place so you may see some variety in certain markets, but there will be tons more imports.
The plan for Emerald CLub customers is to be able to accumulate rental credits at ERAC (Enterprise Rent a Car) locations however those who collect airline credits, will not be getting those. The final details have yet to be completely worked out, but the idea is to reward E/Club customer whether they rent from National or ERAC in the local markets.

rentalguy

National will always be the premium brand geared to the business traveler and Enterprise will cater to the weekend, body shop, leisure renter. There will be nicer cars in the fleet however as you pointed out we can no longer afford to have fully loaded compacts or mid size with leather, sunroofs etc and people only willing to pay $30/day for them. The lower end car classes will continue to become base models in most cases. With respect to XM and Siruis, they used to offer free 6 month and 4 month service respectively which have now been downgraded to 3 months in most cases. As such most of the rental fleets (not just in National's) will have expired radio service.

NVGuy36

Just wanted to formally welcome you to the boards as I see you're a newly enlisted member

Thanks for the info...I'm sure all of us here sincerely appreciate the 'straight from the horses mouth' info you can provide! Well, at least I am

Now, if'n only you had some pull with them thur fellers up in SEA...they SOOOO hosed me on my last 2 week rental up thur. I think I deserve at least a FRD (free rental day) credit or something You can read my rant over in the CARS AT SEA thread here (post #44): http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/natio...ars-sea-3.html

Thanks and welcome again!

Tuneman1984

True. Soon as I turn 25 I can start booking Premium for the fullsize price so some of my worries will be over. As long as National doesn't adopt the ERAC strategy and call a base cloth seat Chrysler 300 a Premium...

With respect to upgraded cars within the category, I know the Focuses (err, Focii?) were equipped as such as the difference between a fully-loaded SES and a base SE (lowest model with A/C) wasn't much even at the retail level. I know part of the reason the industry is being turned on its head is the fact that rates have stayed static for so long. However, there's a huge difference between someone who pays $30/day every 5-6 months, and someone who pays that same rate once a week on average. I'm a big believer in supporting loyalty, especially in these times. Kind of like "scratch my back and I'll scratch yours". Give me an Impala LT or Fusion SEL to drive off the ES as opposed to a row of 30,000 mile Grand Prixs without anti-lock brakes and I'll give you 99.6% of my business as I have with National for the last 2 years.

P.S. I also extend my welcome to FlyerTalk for you. nice to have an inside source to bounce ideas/rants off of

drzoidberg

Well, National gave me a Toyota Avalon once with cloth seats and called it a Premium (no sunroof, XM, or any other goodies).

rentalguy

Thanks Tuneman and NVguy. Looking forward to offering some insights (and hopefully keeping you guys and eveyone else renting with National.

On a side note, the folks at ERAC (Enterprise) know the tremendous value of both National and Emerald Club. It's one of the main reasons they bought the company. Last thing they want to do is mess around with the program. The Exec & elites are our bread and butter so they/we all know the imprtance of keeping these members happy.

Beckles

Apparently I'm in the minority, but I think Enterprise offers a pretty good product. I have not experienced the insurance hard sell from them in years, sure they inspect the cars, but I'd hardly call it all that thorough, and the fuel thing ... ehhh, it's no worse than getting a car on "full" that is really two gallons from being full.

Then there are two areas where Enterprise is far and away ahead of other rental car companies:

* Whatever it is that Enterprise does in its hiring and compensation, it's always obvious to me the caliber of their employees I deal with is light-years above those of the average employee I deal with at any other rental car company.

* Their number of locations obviously is second-to-none.

I only end up using them for rentals in my hometown, but I wouldn't have a problem using them on the road, I just don't.

finlandia

I have to second that. The Enterprise employees I've dealt with have been by far the best. My rental experience at LAX last week (on business) was excellent aside from not being able to bypass the counter. The return guy was much faster than Hertz's and the inspection was not at all thorough. Random employees even thanked me for my business as I walked to the shuttle.

YMMV, obviously.

Exiled in Express

I don't want to take this thread too far off course, but what are your thoughts on brand consolidation? National and Enterprise both have their target markets but Alamo's demographic seems to be "I am cheap and at an airport". I really find it odd that there are 4 main players in the rental business and they masquerade behind 8-10 brands.

rentalguy

Alamo isnt going away. Surprisingly, it is a huge brand in the leisure and oversees tour business. In fact Alamo has the #1 market share in the UK and is also the Market leader in Florida and Nevada. Besides all the Europeans that come to North America love the brand and know it better than National or Enterprise. In most places in FLA and NV, it's ALAMO/ NATIONAL, not the other way around. We are reducing the exposure the brand in some lesser "tourist" markets, and in places where there was an network of OFF AIRPORT Alamo locations (such as Canada), they are being eliminated and will be available just at Airports. But the 3 brands do target distinct segments in the market.

Tuneman1984

I've seen that in a number of Canadian airports. Here in YEG, however, Alamo is still off-site, same with Dollar. If they both merged their counter with National and Thrifty respectively, it would just leave Enterprise off-site, and funnily enough there's an empty counter space in the YEG rental centre that's just had renos finished....

Here's a question, with the new buyout, are their any plans you know of for a trilateral consolidation, i.e. having Enterprise, National, and Alamo at one kiosk in a given airport or neighbourhood location?

P.S. In an effort to keep this thread on-topic, I'm shifting my general gripes and grumbles to the thread I created. I appreciate your responses to it.