Have a confirmed reservation, show up for the rental car.... no car.

[Kuato]

Got some insider info on this. Due to covid, rental car companies were in dire straights and sold off so many cars that they hamstrung themselves for when business started to come back. Now we, the renters are paying the price at the counter in two ways: as mrsilv04 did, with no car when one was supposedly held in reserve, and also through exhorbitant price gouging rates when cars areavailable.

Heinous that the renting public is being punished for their poor business management.

 

[Bottom_Feeder]

I have a reservation, that is still a valid reservation in their system when I look it up... and the Enterprise location did not have a car for me.

National, Enterprise, Enterprise, National... It doesn't matter to us. They're the same company using the reservation system that they provide to us.

What I'm asking is, was the reservation made with National?

 

[tyman]

Not exactly just in time, it is a lending business just like the bank and there is a car shortages.

Try Turo, those are owners renting our their cars and they are still around, many work from home folks are renting out their cars.

This is what we had to do for Hawaii next week, Turo. Not too bad, $150/day for a newer Lexus RX350.

 

[mrsilv04]

What I'm asking is, was the reservation made with National?

It was a confirmed Enterprise reservation, at an Enterprise location, that claims to not have any vehicles.

 

[tyman]

Got some insider info on this. Due to covid, rental car companies were in dire straights and sold off so many cars that they hamstrung themselves for when business started to come back. Now we, the renters are paying the price at the counter in two ways: as mrsilv04 did, with no car when one was supposedly held in reserve, and also through exhorbitant price gouging rates when cars areavailable.

Heinous that the renting public is being punished for their poor business management.

To be fair, this has been known for 1-2 months now, that they sold off a lot of their fleets. Just happens that the CDC is lessening mask mandates and places like Hawaii are opening up more so more people are traveling now. Our flight from Seattle to Honolulu is completely packed on Saturday.

 

[JTK]

I get that they are short on vehicles, but the fact that they can't notify their paying customers ahead of time that they can't make good on their reservations is inexcusable IMO.

 

[GSCJR]

Several years ago, I booked a Focus in Venezia but ended up with this Alfa. I tried my best to look disappointed at the counter. A few years ago at FLL, I ended up with a Fusion Hybrid instead of a Kia Optima because when I tried to leave the lot, the mileage flagged the computer at the check out that it was due for service. The Kia was tired looking and the Fusion had just a few thousand miles on it, virutally brand new. Someone had smoked the funny stuff in it though, it stank for a few days. We had it for 3 weeks and I took really good care of it, it was nice a car.

 

[Snowflake White]

Customer service these days is really going down hill. To top it off some of the employees don't go out of their way to try and help people.

There really is no such thing as we knew it say forty years ago or more, I'd say we don't actually have it anymore.

I wouldn't be surprised at all about this situation, and get ready for much more of it.

I agree about leaving the premises. I would have calmly called their corporate number while there and asked them to solve the problem.

 

[JustinH]

We are going to Colorado in a few weeks to see friends. I usually rent a car in Denver.

No thanks $630 for 2 days for an economy car.

My buddy is going to loan me his car for the few days we are there.

 

[slacktide_bitog]

Rent a U-Haul like people are supposedly doing in Hawaii

 

[JTK]

We are going to Colorado in a few weeks to see friends. I usually rent a car in Denver.

No thanks $630 for 2 days for an economy car.

My buddy is going to loan me his car for the few days we are there.

I've heard similar price quotes for 2 days.

Are people really paying this or are these the 'we don't even have a car to rent' price?

The we don't give a chit attitude of these rental car co's really amazes me. I guess they don't have enough competition for it to be a concern for them.

 

[Blinker]

In times like these it’s probably best to prepay for the rental ahead of time if you know your trip plans are concrete and unlikely to change. A few years ago I flew into Phoenix for a wedding and I had my whole trip prepaid. The shuttle bus driver from the airport made an announcement over the loud speaker saying “I hope you all prepaid for your rental car because there are none left”.

Sure enough, all the garage floors were cleared out except for a handful of rental cars that were prepaid. This was for all the rental companies. There were a lot of travelers scrambling and plenty of people were willing to buy people out of their rental, paying the rental fee, cancellation fees, and on top of that paying a reward. For a $175 weekend rental I could have made a small fortune.

Needless to say Phoenix was lit that weekend, it was ASU parents weekend and Harry Styles was in town for some concert so good luck finding a rental car anywhere.

 

[Snowflake White]

I've heard similar price quotes for 2 days.

Are people really paying this or are these the 'we don't even have a car to rent' price?

The we don't give a chit attitude of these rental car co's really amazes me. I guess they don't have enough competition for it to be a concern for them.

The companies can barely get anyone that wants to work at all. Many of these employees are bottom of the barrel and would rather be collecting the extra benefits that the gov't was paying, but some states have stop accepting those things and it's forcing unhappy people back to work.

 

[PandaBear]

I've heard similar price quotes for 2 days.

Are people really paying this or are these the 'we don't even have a car to rent' price?

The we don't give a chit attitude of these rental car co's really amazes me. I guess they don't have enough competition for it to be a concern for them.

That's likely business trip price, they don't care anyways.

Once I had a coworker who went on a trip using a $10k first class ticket because business class was sold out, and then when he got there the only open Hotel was Ritz Carlton. We got corp rate but still at least $500 a night.

$600 for 2 days of rental seems "fair" if you want to win it over the other 4 customers give up. It is the market rate.

 

[JTK]

The companies can barely get anyone that wants to work at all. Many of these employees are bottom of the barrel and would rather be collecting the extra benefits that the gov't was paying, but some states have stop accepting those things and it's forcing unhappy people back to work.

Times and circumstances have surely changed. I worked for Budget Rent-a-car back around 1989-90. I cleaned, lightly serviced and transported vehicles. Man that was fun making time with the ladies in the office and at the airport counters, plus racing around in brand-new vehicles. I would have almost done it for free. Of course I was 19 at the time.

 

[y_p_w]

Once I had a coworker who went on a trip using a $10k first class ticket because business class was sold out, and then when he got there the only open Hotel was Ritz Carlton. We got corp rate but still at least $500 a night.

I've heard of large meetings of federal government employees where they got a package with every room at the federal per diem rate. And some of the rooms included multi-room suites.

 

[Chris142]

Maybe the last renter has not returned with it yet? In my area rentals have always been scarce. If you did not reserve one by Wednesday you won't get one for the weekend.

 

[Hall]

Maybe the last renter has not returned with it yet?

That definitely happens. My co-worker had a rental and got delayed at a site by a day and the rental place called asking if he had returned it and they couldn't find it, if he was running late, etc. I suspect they "needed" the car and some customer ran into the same thing as the OP.

 

[PandaBear]

I've heard of large meetings of federal government employees where they got a package with every room at the federal per diem rate. And some of the rooms included multi-room suites.

Large conference typically has pre-negotiated rates, but emergency business trips don't.

Hence those $500 rental car, $10k last minute first class flight in prime season (Xmas), and Ritz Carlton hotel room.

 

[Wolf359]

Large conference typically has pre-negotiated rates, but emergency business trips don't.

Hence those $500 rental car, $10k last minute first class flight in prime season (Xmas), and Ritz Carlton hotel room.

Depends on the entity. If you're government, you get the government rate.