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Transportation Businesses

The US Car Rental Market is Crying Out for Disruption (theatlantic.com) 117

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
Supply is low, demand is high -- but that alone cannot explain the weird indignity of renting a vehicle. From a report: The present situation is "the most challenging in the history of car rental," says Chris Brown, the digital editor of the industry trade publication Auto Rental News. "Last year ... it was a disaster." Nobody could have planned for such a catastrophic revenue loss, he told me, and while the airline industry received a government bailout, the rental-car industry did not. "Hertz had 3,000 cars burned to the ground because someone lit a match, and they just burned in a field," he added. (Something like this did happen in Florida, though only around 1,000 of the 4,500 cars destroyed in the fire belonged to Hertz, and investigators blamed the episode on a hot exhaust pipe and dry grass.) Given the context, some negative customer experiences were to be expected, Brown argued. "But I think it's really impressive how car-rental [companies have] been able to pull themselves out of this very difficult time managing as well as they are."

Well, I'm not trying to be unfair to any companies, but many car-rental businesses did receive funds from the Paycheck Protection Program. And many of their negative customer experiences have nothing to do with a car shortage or a pandemic. Why is that car-rental employee typing for so long? We'll never know. Why are the printers so old and loud and broken? Who could say! Will you ever get a straight answer as to how much insurance to buy, or whether to prepay for gas, or why it's forbidden for you to drive this rental car out of the state of Florida? What does the pandemic have to do with Avis allegedly repossessing a rental car from someone's driveway in the middle of the night in Teaneck, New Jersey, and then allegedly claiming to know absolutely nothing about it, in one of the oddest stories I have ever read? And what does the pandemic have to do with the stream of complaints about rental-car companies on the Better Business Bureau website, a surprising number of which come from people who insist that they do not smoke yet they have been charged as much as $450 for allegedly smoking in a car?

I reached out with questions of this kind to the three largest rental-car companies, which control the large majority of the rental-car business in the United States. Enterprise Holdings did not respond. Avis Budget declined to comment about either the state of the industry or the alleged incident in Teaneck. A Hertz spokesperson said, in part, "Hertz is working closely with our automotive partners to add new vehicles to our fleet as quickly as possible amid the microchip shortage that continues to impact the car rental industry. We're also purchasing low-mileage, pre-owned vehicles, and moving vehicles to the areas with highest demand." The financial structure of these companies is as inscrutable as a contract printed on a dot-matrix printer and signed in a dim underground parking garage. Some of them have gone bankrupt; at least one has done so multiple times. Take Hertz for instance: Private-equity firms acquired the company from Ford in 2005, then made a profit of $1 billion with an IPO while the company itself remained deeply in debt. The company is also on its sixth CEO since 2014 and has been deemed a "Frankenstein of financial engineering" by Axios. Most of the cars that Hertz rents out are owned by "special-purpose" subsidiaries of Hertz, from which Hertz then leases them. When Hertz was sliding into bankruptcy in spring 2020, it was because the company had missed lease payments -- to put it crudely -- to itself. I can barely understand this, yet I will walk into a rental-car office and suffer for it.
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The US Car Rental Market is Crying Out for Disruption More

The US Car Rental Market is Crying Out for Disruption

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  • Dry grass (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Viol8 ( 599362 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @12:05PM (#62112091) Homepage

    "blamed the episode on a hot exhaust pipe and dry grass"

    Its amazing how many people just Don't Get It when it comes to this. I've been to a number of outdoor events in recent summers with field parking where we've been guided to park on dry grass that obviously hadn't been mown for weeks. On all occasions I said no and why, and got either a shrug from the grunt in the dayglo vest and pointed to some tarmac down the road or just being told to leave if I didn't like it.

    • curious.
      what has a field of cars burning because some dumb ass lit it up with their exhaust pipe with the rental car industry.
      imagine owning 1000 cars and watching the video of them going up in smoke

      • The owner (car rental company) 'lost' the deductible on 1,000 total loss car write-offs at a minimum, not to mention their inability to buy 1,000 replacement vehicles in anything resembling a reasonable timeframe.

        Now, the car rental company self-insured to cover damage to the vehicles (I assume they did), then they are out tens of millions of dollars ($20,000 per car, times 1,000 cars is $20,000,000) and had NO rental revenue coming in (that's why they parked 1,000 cars in the field in the first place).

        • taking self-insurance responsibility is just par of their business model.
          This episode is fully in average of what happens yearly to their fleet.
          Sorry, it's just a lame excuse.

        • business modeling.
          lets use our fingers to count.
          check the daily rental price of a rental car
          rental car companies go for 95 percent rental time per month.
          i suggest checking into buying preferred voting stock for hertz.

          you can not afford to hire a team of auto body experts to fix your yugo.
          hertz can.
          and when hertz is not repairing their cars.
          they are probably repairing yours.

          insurance.
          check into surety bonds.
          the cost will amaze you.

          lawyers.
          yes.
          hertz lawyers can mostly beat your lawyer up

        • Re: Dry grass - yellow press style (Score:5, Informative)

          by ShanghaiBill ( 739463 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @03:50PM (#62112597)

          The owner (car rental company) 'lost' the deductible

          It is unlikely they were insured.

          Insurance increases costs while spreading risk. If you own one or two cars, insurance makes sense if you can't afford the loss. But if you own thousands of cars, it is more sensible to forego the cost and overhead of buying insurance because your risk is already spread across many vehicles. The insurance company's admin overhead and profit stay in your pocket.

          Of course, that logic fails when you lose a thousand cars in one incident. Oops.

          Disclaimer: My insurance is liability only.

          • Most rental companies would carry a fleet policy which covers company operation on public roads. It's not like a personal policy which is tied to a specific vehicle.

            Normally a business like this would have the vehicles' value insured with a more general type of business asset insurance.

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

              Most rental companies would carry a fleet policy which covers company operation on public roads. It's not like a personal policy which is tied to a specific vehicle.

              Normally a business like this would have the vehicles' value insured with a more general type of business asset insurance.

              Depends, the cars were being put into storage effectively, and their business asset insurance might not cover it. But that might be fine, since the insurance likely would cost more than the expected losses - if the storage ri

    • Yeah, that may be so, but I've noticed during the last couple of recessions an odd correlation between 'accidentally caught fire' and a downturn in the economy. I used to work out of an industrial area in a city, and when the GFC hit, it seemed like every car place in the area was having a bout of accidental fires.

    • investigators blamed the episode on a hot exhaust pipe and dry grass

      Its amazing how many people just Don't Get It when it comes to this. ...

      Indeed. Way back when I was in high school, we lived in an area where people could rake their leaves into the street and a sweeper truck would come by and sweep them all up. One day a neighbor's visitor parked his car on top of a pile of these leaves and the hot catalytic converter set them on fire a very short time later. The whole car went up and was burned down to the frame. Thankfully, no one and nothing else was harmed.

  • Not my experience (Score:5, Insightful)

    by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @12:10PM (#62112105)
    I recently traveled for business for the first time post-pandemic. It was like always, pick a car, show ID at the exit, you're out of there. I am always surprised a car can be rented for $30-something dollars per day, which is about the same as one 20 minute taxi ride.

    This seems like the kind of article that happens when you pick a subject to complain about and then scour the internet for supporting anecdotes.

    • This seems like the kind of article that happens when you pick a subject to complain about and then scour the internet for supporting anecdotes.

      I mean I feel like that's pretty much endemic on the Internet, especially regarding "news" shared via social media.

      Just one, boomers see some story about some particularly loathesome young person and then forward to all creation exclaiming how terrible youth are these days when it's really just cherry picking a few bad cases out of the millions of young people that are just normal.

    • So yeah the vast majority of customers aren't going to experience problems. If they were a company would be collapsing to the point where we wouldn't be reading articles about problems we'd be reading articles about how their stock price was in the pennies.

      The point of articles like this is to raise an address a problem before it gets so bad that a large part of our infrastructure collapses (and yes car rental is part of our infrastructure).

      As others have pointed out, this looks to be yet another exa

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        Once those jackals are on your back it's only a matter of time before your business collapses.

        Then why did you sell your business to them? Or maybe it's not really your business, but that of the shareholders. Publicly traded businesses who have large quantities of capital assets are prime targets for vultures who need to play games with taxes and depreciation. And occasionally when the financial statistics turn negative, their assets mysteriously catch fire.

        Want to fix the industry? Get the GAAP rules [wikipedia.org] changed to plug the loopholes.

        • Although I did notice you put it in terms of it being my business but it's not, trying to make it sound more personal than it actually is. Anyway...

          The most common scenario is a hostile takeover. A Wealthy investor will use their money to sabotage the company in order to get a controlling share of stock. What the investor can't do to sabotage he'll do by making deals with other investors were they're all agree to gut the company. As a publicly traded company, which because of how our system works just
          • One last thing, changing the counting practices won't stop this from happening. Vulture capitalists are extremely transparent with what they're doing and very careful in how they do it. That's because what they're doing often leaves smaller investors left holding a bill of goods and so they have to be careful with how they do things from a legal standpoint. Mitt Romney is famously a very educated man but we don't talk about what his education entailed. Specifically he went to school to learn how to do this

            • Re: (Score:2)

              by PPH ( 736903 )

              One last thing, changing the counting practices won't stop this from happening.

              Tax loopholes are what make most of these schemes viable. Book values, depreciation and numerous other schemes all allow the dodging of taxes upon a transfer of ownership. For example, if I buy a TV set, I owe 10% sales tax. Why should that be any different for people who buy companies?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by PPH ( 736903 )

            Although I did notice you put it in terms of it being my business but it's not,

            Well, you said "before your business collapses". So the assumption I made is from the point of view of an owner or shareholder. If you don't want hostile takeovers of "your business" then don't trade it's shares publicly. There are a whole bunch of ownership structures that can effectively keep unwanted investors out.

            But if you meant being an employee of "your business" then there's nothing you can do other than hand in your two weeks notice once an undesirable ownership change occurs.

    • I can counter that. Two years pre-pandemic, we rented a car through Hertz. We were going on a long road trip so we reserved a mid-sized SUV several months ahead of time. The day were were supposed to pick up the car they didn't have it. They didn't know when it was coming back, and didn't have any other cars available to rent. It wouldn't have been so bad, but every call in the morning was "It will be ready in an hour" and "We're really busy just another hour and we'll get to it" to finally, several hours l

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by PPH ( 736903 )

        but the lady literally walked out into the lot, found a mid-sized SUV, got the ID, and grabbed the keys out of the lockbox before someone else could snag them

        And the poor slob who had reserved that vehicle a month ago was left standing at the Enterprise counter an hour later. Their process is just as broken as Hertz. 'Hero' employees are what you get when the standard work flow is screwed up.

      • I think their system is based on a sort-of pareto principle

        Of course it is. It need to be to stay competitive in the industry. In other news airlines overbook flights, peak hour trains are always full as are roads. When you run a rental business every piece of inventory you have not out for rent is an expense.

        You'll find customers for every company with anecdotes of bad experiences. You'll find customers of most companies with overwhelmingly good experiences.

        Hertz one day forgot to put aside chains for my rental and spent an hour looking for them. On the flip side

      • They got us one right away, but the lady literally walked out into the lot, found a mid-sized SUV, got the ID, and grabbed the keys out of the lockbox before someone else could snag them

        That's not actually a confidence-building statement, that sounds like there was a shortage, you knew in advance there was a shortage, and then you got lucky. And that you know that Enterprise has the same problems, and their employees are well aware that they rent things out even if "reserved." (because of the high rate of no-shows)

        When I rented from Hertz, I walked in, selected a vehicle, got the keys, and left, with no troubles.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by JBMcB ( 73720 )

          That's not actually a confidence-building statement, that sounds like there was a shortage, you knew in advance there was a shortage, and then you got lucky. And that you know that Enterprise has the same problems, and their employees are well aware that they rent things out even if "reserved." (because of the high rate of no-shows)

          My point exactly. At least Enterprise *tried* Hertz's reaction to their own screwup was to shrug shoulders and go "I guess you're screwed." I know we lucked out with Enterprise, but they worked with us, at least.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      And a hotel costs more than an apartment rental.

      Sometimes you have services that are *somewhat* interchangeable but they're packaged to be convenient and economical for different use cases. Packages that include larger chunks of value cost less per unit, just like 18 eggs cost less per egg than if you buy a half dozen, even though an egg is an egg. Taxi service is not quite like car rentals, you get more labor-intensive service that costs more to provide but is convenient to purchase for, say, five minute

      • I mean yeah obviously the labor is expensive (plus the medallion shit) but fundamentally it's just solving the transportation problem so it's a bit striking how expensive it is. Shit the 20 minute ride to the airport costs more than a 2 hour flight, it's nuts.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by hey! ( 33014 )

          That's because the airlines actually don't make money from flights. They're essentially banks now that market their credit cards through their frequent flyer programs.

          • I've heard that theory but some of these airlines don't even have any credit card or frequent flyer program. They're just cheap as shit.

        • Medallions, though I hate them too, do serve an at least arguably useful purpose in the most congested cities like New York: they limit the number of vehicles on the road at any time, thereby making all of them vastly more useful by avoiding permanent gridlock.

          For this same reason, New York is among the few places in the U.S. where limiting the numbers of all vehicles in certain places at certain times, not just taxis or Ubers, also makes sense. If you don't, then everybody and their uncle tries to drive i

      • Packages that include larger chunks of value cost less per unit, just like 18 eggs cost less per egg than if you buy a half dozen, even though an egg is an egg.

        Only because we don't pay hens by the hour. In fact, I hear they do all the work but only get paid 70% of what the rooster gets :-P

    • Re:Not my experience (Score:4, Interesting)

      by 140Mandak262Jamuna ( 970587 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @01:53PM (#62112347) Journal
      Post-pandemic?

      You mean its over and no one told me?

    • Yeah, not my experience either. I rented in Florida this summer, Massachusetts last summer, no real problems. Oh, last year I had two flat tires, a first, so three cars that time since they swap cars. This summer it was just dirty when I picked it up.

      I do use my account that gets me a discount via my employer, but I even usually get upgrades when they don't have the car I reserved, which is common since around 2008, and I do reserve well in advance for more than a week.

      But I have heard terrible grumblings a

      • Had two rentals in Iceland and Malta this year, both with local companies and they were fine. Previously with Avis, Budget and what not has been fine too.

        Honestly the only pain in the ass is insurance. You either pay more than the rental amount for "protection", or they're free to fuck you over to the tune of thousands if they find a "new" scratch. Been pretty lucky so far thankfully though.

      • There's a marked difference between renting for business and for pleasure.

        I travel extensively (less so since C19) and the rental car part is generally easy quick and cheap, in fact, I wish similar convenience and costs applied to renting other large ticket items for short durations. But if I rent for personal use from the same company it quickly becomes a costly, error riddled, nightmare.

        The rates seem to triple, they charge the wrong credit card regardless of which one I present (so I then have to explain

        • If your employer permits it, or The companies that you prefer offer it, enroll in some loyalty program using your employer as I reference or a discount or whatever they offer for you. I do this. My rentals are completely for pleasure, never for business. It does get me a little bit better protection. Plus I use the credit card that I have from that company that says don't leave home without it. That has some specific advantages, and all I do is pay the bill off my debit card when I get home. Home. I've had

    • I recently traveled for business for the first time post-pandemic. It was like always, pick a car, show ID at the exit, you're out of there.

      This has not been my experience in the Pacific Northwest - even pre-COVID.

      On two different occasions during the past 5-6 years (first time was pre-COVID, the second was this past September), I went to a rental company's site (Budget once, Enterprise the other IIRC). I walked through the steps and was "guaranteed" (they actually say that) a car at a location on a specific date and time.

      Then, I get there... no car. They have my reservation, but there's no car available. It was like the old Seinfeld episode. T

      • I'm in the Pacific Northwest and I've never, never had a problem. Walk in, pick a car, show ID, done. (Hertz)

        Then again, I also don't travel during a high-travel time to a high-travel place and then expect to rent a car.

    • Well, not my recent experience at all. Made a reservation in the us from overseas. When we get there at the correct time, the car is not available, but of course a more expensive one is. Then the insurance is not the "righ correct" one, which happen to be 5 (!) Times more expensive. Crooks the whole lot of them. They hold you hostage, knowing you have no other option, and milk you for more than you are worth.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I recently traveled for business for the first time post-pandemic. It was like always, pick a car, show ID at the exit, you're out of there. I am always surprised a car can be rented for $30-something dollars per day, which is about the same as one 20 minute taxi ride.

      This seems like the kind of article that happens when you pick a subject to complain about and then scour the internet for supporting anecdotes.

      Yep, that's what it was like when I rented a car, but in Europe. I don't understand how they could have rented that car to me for 20 Euros, but they did. It was only a Fiat 500 supermini but still, 20 Euro. It was 45 Euro from the airport to my hotel.

      The major issue the hire car market has at the moment is the availability of new cars. The chip shortage has decreased supply but not demand so manufacturers aren't giving them sweet deals on fleets any more. Most have just kept their old fleet for a bit lon

  • https://www.inc.com/minda-zetl... [inc.com]
    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/h... [cbsnews.com]
    https://www.thedrive.com/news/... [thedrive.com]

    Of course Hertz is some corporate shell for making investors quick cash.

    • You're citing multiple news stories about the same thing. They're articles before a hearing that air the accusations.

      And there is one couple who these journalists found had a story worth telling. One single incident where Hertz reported a car stolen, and didn't report it later being found or returned. A single case. Out of hundreds of clients, there is just this one couple with a story worth publishing.

      And the lawyers of these mystery clients once tried to sue Led Zeppelin over Stairway to Heaven. When the

  • private equity (Score:3)

    by awwshit ( 6214476 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @12:23PM (#62112137)

    This seems like a rant about Hertz, even if it includes words about others and the industry. The real issue is right in the summary - private equity folks stepped in and made themselves a ton of money and they did not care what was left after that. The author has a problem with private equity, not with Hertz.

    • I think it is indeed Hertz that has the most bizarre problems. Like this case [theguardian.com] reported last month where they charged a person twice the agreed price because he returned the car 2 days early! No such thing in their own terms of service of course...
      So, yeah, the article tries to generalize it, but I think it's just Hertz having been fucked up in recent years.

      • When you're citing something from The Guardian, you need a bit more. You should check for a reputable source.

        Right in the sub-headline they have nonsense about the person's dying brother to gain sympathy. That's really weak journalism.

        Howorth’s premature departure caused his special 28-day deal to be scrapped and the rental to be recalculated at a different daily rate to reflect the time the car was in his possession.

        So there it is! He had originally been quoted a special price because of the length of the rental, and then he ended the rental in a shorter amount of time, and didn't qualify for the special anymore. That's unpleasant if you're not expecting it, but not at all what the story

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Ecuador ( 740021 )

          You seem to have no understanding of how car rentals work. If you book a car for a specific duration, you are due the full amount quoted. If you return earlier, they are not going to refund you the days you skipped and sure as hell they are not going to charge you extra by "recalculating". I have booked a 6-day rental as a 7-day before to take advantage of a full week special, and dropped it off earlier - there is never any stipulation about how early you have to bring it, your original contract is fulfille

          • You seem to have no understanding of how car rentals work.

            Please don't be such a moron. That's just... stupid. Very stupid. You are stupid.

            If you book a car for a specific duration, you are due the full amount quoted.

            What does that even mean? You're due? What? You're so busy telling yourself I don't understand, you can't even form a sentence.

            If you return earlier, they are not going to refund you the days you skipped and sure as hell they are not going to charge you extra by "recalculating".

            It's right there in the story about the guy; yes, they're going to recalculate based on what actually happened. There were terms and conditions in the rental contract.
            Your terms were different, but you're talking about a 7 day rental, and your experience had nothing to do with the special 28-day rate at

          • I agree, if you rent a car for a month and bring it back after 25 days, you still pay for the month you agreed to, but they don't say hey you were not eligible for that month deal. Cheater!

            There are other reasons to be careful about bringing a car back early though.

            https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada... [www.cbc.ca]

  • Maybe stop reporting your customers to the police? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @12:27PM (#62112143)
    I recently saw a video about people who had their rental cars reported stolen. A few cases because they were a couple hours late but in many cases they had actually rented the car and were current on the rental contract. Many of them had returned the car.

    In every single case it was up to them to prove they didn't steal the car, effectively guilty until proven innocent. The part about it that really struck me is how everyone knew that even though they clearly didn't steal the car that it was extremely likely they might still do years in prison because everyone knows we often convict people crimes they didn't commit. It's funny because we act like that doesn't happen but then as soon as the cops come knocking...

    • One person, and his wife was in the car when they stopped it, so they're both suing.

      See how easily the media tricked you? They have hundreds of people who were arrested for stealing Hertz cars. And one person who was stopped by the police, and not arrested, because Hertz neglected to report the car "found" after first reporting it "stolen."

      And in your mind they conflated those, so you now believe there are a bunch of cases like the latter. But it is just a single accusation.

  • Full disclosure: I didn't know about this company until a few days ago. Turo is the Airbnb for cars. Got a spare vehicle, rent it out. Granted, I can see all kinds of potential problems but it sounds like disruption to me.

    • I'm glad you brought up Turo! I have just had my first experience with them, unfortunately not positive.

      2 months ago I was planning a family trip to a destination with very expensive car rentals. I reserved a car with a "regular" company (Sixt) for about $2200 (for 4 days!) and then went looking for alternative. Someone recommended Turo, I signed up. Rented a large SUV for $1200 (still terrible, but better!). After uploading all my docs, being in touch with host, etc things seemed OK. Cancelled Sixt renta

      • Re:How about Turo? (Score:4, Interesting)

        by demonlapin ( 527802 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @06:20PM (#62113069) Homepage Journal
        It's all-around crazy. Went to Hawaii earlier this year. Market is insane, no cars available at any price on the big island (ended up getting a totally normal rate through the hotel). So I rent a mid-size for $300/day on Maui. Agent tries to upsell me three or four times, starting at $250 per day more for a Jeep, and all the while he's pulling some routine about "what you have rented is just a Kia" (it's a rental, not an ownership process, why do I give a fuck?). And then the final offer is "I can give you an E-class Mercedes for $35/day more than you planned on". Sold. But at the same time... if you have all these cars sitting around that you can upgrade me to, why can't I book one?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Travco ( 1872216 )
      I looked into renting through them. After reading the agreement... Nope not a good idea

    • I’ve used Turo a couple times It’s ok, but I honestly prefer the rental car companies for my needs.

      The bottom line why everybody hates rental car companies is because they are trying to maximize their profit by selling unnecessary insurance policies and similar add-ons.

      The process should be easier, but they don’t really seem to care about it despite just how easy it could be to implement. It should be as simple as scan your drivers license, enter phone number, agent (somewhere) verifies t

      • One major and often overlooked part of the problem though is the customers themselves. It’s amazing just how little many of them understand about the process.

        Par for the course. TSA Precheck is much faster than the regular security lines, but all of its perks - keep your belt and shoes on, don't have to pull liquids out, metal detector only instead of naked scanner - do very little to speed the line up. What makes it fast is partly that it's shorter, and mostly that everyone in that line knows the rules. They're not looking for their ID when they come up to the agent, they have their boarding pass up on their phone, their bags are packed in such a way that it's

  • Consumer rentals are a side business (Score:3)

    by monkeyxpress ( 4016725 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @12:37PM (#62112179)

    If you have ever done international business, you'll realise that tourists renting cars is just a side gig for the rental companies to make use of the weekend slump (its the same with hotel rooms). When you are travelling for business you just stream-roll your way through everything, paying what is required to get to the meeting that you've arranged, or that connecting flight.

    All medium-large businesses have corporate accounts with the rental agencies where huge sums get charged up. I imagine their outdated systems are designed to work well enough with a Fortune 500's accounts department, settling 1000+ rentals from the last month. That is where the bulk of their money comes from so there is no real incentive in investing in a fancy web system or whatever so the tourists don't have to wait as long at pickup.

  • Well, I'm not trying to be unfair to any companies, but many car-rental businesses did receive funds from the Paycheck Protection Program. And many of their negative customer experiences have nothing to do with a car shortage or a pandemic. Why is that car-rental employee typing for so long? We'll never know. Why are the printers so old and loud and broken? Who could say!

    Wow.

    The Paycheck Protection Program benefitted EMPLOYEES, not the employer directly. It paid employees when they couldn't work because their employer couldn't open.

    We need to reimagine the car rental industry because the agents use impact printers and manual text entry? /SMH

    • The Paycheck Protection Program benefitted EMPLOYEES, not the employer directly.

      That's the theory.

      It paid employees when they couldn't work because their employer couldn't open.

      No, it did not. That is not how it worked. The PPP paid employers, who were then theoretically using the money to preserve headcount despite increases in costs and/or decreases in business due to Covid-19. However, some of these employers passed any and all costs on to the customers, some of them actually had their best year ever due to Covid (e.g. in the RV industry) and they got PPP "loans" anyway. The majority of the loans were eventually forgiven, so they were grants and not loans, ult

    • You are reading too much into the Title of PPP. While it was certainly intended for employers nto continue paying their employees, we also know that it was acceptable to be used for mortgage interest, rent/lease, and utilities. Payroll should have bee the major use of the loan but the second stimulus bill also introduced four new categories of expenses that are allowed.

      So it's easy to see that the PPP directly benefitted EMPLOYERS over employees. Do you even know a single person(must be an employee not

  • I don't know maybe because I'm a National and Hertz member but when I rent from them I just pick any car in the aisle and give the paper work and my license to the gatekeeper. Returning is equally easy, I just drop the car off and they email the receipt. I'm sure the membership clubs for Avis and others are equally easy. So to avoid waits and hassle all you need to do is join the FREE rental clubs.

  • i work at hertz, ask away (Score:3)

    by LifesABeach ( 234436 ) on Friday December 24, 2021 @12:57PM (#62112235) Homepage

    yup.
    i do.
    i go to work today and will close at 11 p m today.
    merry chirstmas to you.

    so.
    why has covad spread like diarrhea on this planet.
    the transportation industry.
    all of them.

    so.
    why do we have to type for every renter that shows up.
    maybe the typhoid mary in front of me has moved and not updated their drivers license or credit card address data.
    bad guys do that also.

    and yes.
    if the software looks no different than what you saw in the early 2000s.
    it is because it works.
    still

    so.
    what burning question do you have

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by sinij ( 911942 )
      Why do you work at Hertz when in 2021 there is labor shortage and you can pick and choose? It doesn't sound like they treat you well.

      • simple.
        the people i work with.
        i have also found out that managers stop acting like jack asses when i can make 5 dollars more an hour taking their orders at the del taco

      • It doesn't sound like they treat you well.

        Based on what? Nothing LifesABeach has said in any way sounds like they are badly treated or don't like their job. It sounds like they deal with customers and have to type a bit on their computer. Whoop de fucking do.

        I think you're projecting your own hate onto a company's employees. Don't do that.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      How do I get a decent car at a decent price, and not get screwed on dents that were already there when I got it?

      The car I get never matches the one on the website, and I don't enjoy spending 10 minutes photographing every millimetre of it before I drive off.

    • what burning question do you have

      Why do you write like e e cummings?

  • In every possible case it works in their favor.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Travco ( 1872216 )
      Except the one where you mess up and don't the five minutes to refill before returning.

    • In every possible case it works in their favor.

      Of course it does. You're paying them for a service, specifically the one that allows you to return the car empty forcing them to refill it. If you think this was going to cost the same as going to a gas station yourself then that's delusional.

      As for "NEVER" that entirely depends on what it is you're trying to do, and how quickly you need to abandon the car.

      • Given the number of gallons they would refill per month, and the potential taxes they could avoid with accounting, I would expect their lower cost of fuel would more than cover any cost of labor.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by bws111 ( 1216812 )

          You're paying for convenience. Cost of providing the convenience has nothing to do with it.

          • Cost of providing the convenience has nothing to do with it.

            Rather, the cost becomes a minimum to the price.

        • Given the number of gallons they would refill per month, and the potential taxes they could avoid with accounting, I would expect their lower cost of fuel would more than cover any cost of labor.

          You'd be wrong. You can't claim tax back on fuel when you use a car. Hell quite the opposite. Even if you produce fuel you're not allowed to use it because you have to pay tax. It's quite hilarious seeing the practices at our US refineries where they produce diesel, ship it off to terminal via pipelines, and then once a month send a tanker to the terminal to bring the diesel back to the refinery so they can fill up the diesel generators because they aren't allowed to put their own diesel in them (this way t

    • Always prepay gas for the convenience IF you are going to expense it to your company. ;-)

  • enterprise rent a car college degree needed to work the rental desk for low base pay.

  • I'd love a better rental car bushiness. I'd even happily pay a bit more for it but I'm afraid that the reasons rental car companies operate the way they do are inherent in the incentives for anyone renting cars and thus not something that can be disrupted by a tech firm swooping in.

    As someone who recently had a truly negative experience with a rental car company claiming that the car I returned had been damaged (they claimed falling debris of some kind) I am intensely aware of how much this sucks. The pro

  • For either rental cars or airline travel, if for some reason you have to go to the desk (document check for airlines, or non an "elite" member for rental cars) the people behind the desk seem to spend endless time typing in information that they must already have from your web reservation. I would expect there to be a "no changes" button and done.

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