I suspect the reason the counter is there is to upsell people, and that car rental companies make significantly more money because of that bad experience. But god, I would and do pay a premium to not have to deal with that crap.
I used to use Drive Now as they were in ‘Europe’ (I.e. geographically spread across the continent) and they were even at the airport in Helsinki. Then they pulled out of London and Helsinki (and others) where they had been ubiquitous claiming that it was un-profitable. Before that it was ideal though as you could unlock a car at any airport or city with the same app, credit card, agreement etc. And the cars were basically identical too!
Now I have no desire to sign up for a different app/service etc in each city in a language I probably won’t understand and have to get familiar with how they operate (where can you park it, for how long, etc) so it’s back to the familiar rental car desks.
But my point was more that there's no structural reason for the rental friction, other than to upsell people. The risk profile, and things that need to be handled are basically identical for car sharing and car rental, and car sharing makes the process seamless, while car rental makes it intentionally annoying.
It would indeed be great if they could bring this new way of operation to those too.
I know specifically a lot of my friends who basically fall into that category: don't own a car, and decide same-day that they want to do a weekend trip, and would rather pay €20 more to not deal with contract, aggressive up-selling, pick up and drop off, refueling, inspection, etc.
Of course, multi-day long road trip in another country that I plan in advance, hit up Kayak and the major agencies, no question.
I also have to admit that probably 90% of my annoyances comes from a mental issue I have where it really, really bothers me when I think something could be more efficient than it is, when I'm not impacted.
The car belongs to a car sharing company. In Munich for example there is Share Now, Miles, Sixt Share, and some specialized ones. The cars are parked all over the city in normal parking spots on the side of the road. Using the app, you find the closest one, usually you'll find 2 or 3 within 500 meters (strongly depending where you are). You select it in the app, walk up to the car, use the app to unlock and are ready to go.
They are usually paid by the minute, but there is also packages for multiple hours or days. But I think for renting over multiply days, normal car renting is better. Sixt is pretty good. Takes no more than 5 minutes to pick up the car. You don't reserve a specific type, but a class of car. And when I reserve the cheapest class, until now I was upgraded to the higher class every single time. They even have a "Lucky Class" which will explicitly get you whatever they have available, up to the really nice ones.
Inside of the city, they can be parked in any public parking (mostly on street), and you can find them in the app. Just checked, to give a point of reference, and there are two cars available within 200 meters of my apartment, and 7 available within 500 meters. There are also special parking lots at the airport where car sharing cars park.
You can also have one delivered to you at a particular time, but that costs €30, and makes it where a taxi would be cheaper.
Then we switched to Avis and now I have to wait at the counter for someone to help me. Last time I traveled I had to wait like 20 minutes because the line was long. I hate it so much.
I’ve literally had Avis come and get a vehicle that I still had a week left on its rental from a hotel parking lot…and still can’t get an explanation from Avis as to why (or, even better yet, why they charged me for that extra week!)
Yes! It makes no frickin' sense in an age of internet booking, and this is why I, too, use Hertz Gold. As much as Hertz was raked over the coals in that recent Twitter post (seemingly justifiably), I have generally have pretty good experiences with them and hope to never again stand around at a counter having a moronic experience instructing somebody else to re-type all the information I've already typed in when I made the reservation in the first place.
When I return cars at my local Enterprise it's so absurd. I have to park the car to then go into a little house where I wait in line to talk to a guy in a suit who then runs out to check on the car to then come back in and tell me we are all set. Hertz at SFO had people with iPads where you park the car and you are out in under a minute. Why doesn't Enterprise fire half the guys in suits and put the remaining ones in yellow vests into the parking lot and get rid of the little building?!
This industry couldn't seem more ready for disruption.