Which isn't surprising because at some point, someone needs to bring that car back to it's home base.

I wonder if that is why I seem to prefer Enterprise. Not that I would touch Hertz with a 10ft pole anyway.

Which is also why they share the same offices, countertops, parking lots, and I assume cars too when you go to the rental place in an airport.

Earlier this year, I reserved a mid-size vehicle for a few days' drive for a business trip, and after they charged my card, they told me they're bringing around a compact vehicle. I probably should have let it go, the difference in price wasn't that much (and was a work expense) but old habits die hard. "That's not what I paid for - either you can refund me the difference, or you can bring me a mid-size sedan."

They said if I could wait 15 minutes, they'd bump me up from a Hyundai Accent to a larger Toyota, but it wasn't until I sat in the car that I learned that even as a new car, it was as bare-bones as they make them. No CarPlay/Android Auto, the in-car GPS was disabled, no cruise control - I'm sure it would have had manual windows if that were an option. The Hyundai would have been a better ride, I shouldn't have fussed.

But yeah, U-Haul or Ryder or whatever, it's the stone ages there. Years ago, I drove halfway across the state to pick up a sixteen foot truck I'd reserved, and when I got there - "Yeah we don't have a sixteen foot truck, I don't know why it let you reserve that." A smaller truck wasn't an option for what we were moving. I ended up having to call around and hit some local place up.

As Seinfeld said, they're good at taking the reservation, but not good at holding it.

Called Penske, because I'd always had a good business relationship with them via my job. I was told, "Oh, yeah, we don't do that shit. If you book a truck that day, it's gonna be here, guaranteed."

Sure enough, Penske had it. We packed up the truck, I got on the road, and about 45 minutes later I got a call from UHaul telling me that I could pick up an available truck, but it was three hours away.

I laughed loudly and just hung up.

* In the US, Hertz with corporate discounts and status is usually the cheapest and most convenient option. Walk to the car, pick your car from the President's Circle, drive off. Absolutely the best experience I've had with rentals.

* Without status, it's a coin toss: Avis or Hertz, with Avis generally having worse service across the board.

* In Europe, Avis was the worst. In Israel I think it's a franchise, it was all manual entries, long waiting lines. In Portugal I had to wait in line for 1.5 hours to pick up the car because I wasn't Preferred. Their Preferred booth was empty the entire time. All I had to do was validate my drivers license, and they still refused to accept me at Preferred because they print the preferred customers in the morning. Almost missed my flight.

* Europcar in Israel - cheaper but I wasted an hour in line to _return_ the car.

* In Aruba (I think), Avis doesn't tell you they run shuttles to the airport and you have to wait 30+ min for the shuttle to come around and pick you up.

* I rented 26' trucks from U-Haul twice. Both times went well, though the first truck was very bouncy and the second truck's engine light was on, but otherwise I got from A to B with no issues.

But this all pales in comparison to this car rental company in Moldova (Eastern Europe) that took $100 to book an SUV a month in advance, and then when I arrived they said "we don't have it". The only car they had was $50/day more expensive and instead of apologizing and giving me that car, despite being more expensive, they told me that my only option was to pay more to get this car. They were fixing the A/C outside while I was trying to explain to them that it was a ridiculous demand. A bunch of crooks. I walked away. Sixt was a better experience there, and cheaper than Avis, though 4rent.md is definitely the best option with great customer service.

I rented one earlier this month online. When I showed up they handed me a confirmation and told me to pick a car and drive, key was in the cup holder. They had a manned exit barricade to confirm the car you chose, but that was it. I'm not even sure they cared if I picked a car that I didn't reserve, the exit gate person scanned the car and reservation, so it probably would have just updated the reservation on the spot. I don't think it's even possible to predict with certainty what your inventory is going to be 2-3 days out with this sytem.

Just 2 people on the rental side, although I'm sure they have a cleaning/ turnover crew.

Some of my ex-wife's colleagues returned from a conference in Denver back to the east coast in a u-haul van after all air travel was shut down on 9/11

More generally they schedule based on their return schedules. If they have a car scheduled to return at noon and you set your pickup time to one, they assume they'll have that car and be able to rent it to you. If I don't drop it off at noon they can't assume I'll drop it off at 12:01 so they need to let you know it won't be available (since they can't predict my actions).

This is all compounded by agents on the lot renting out cars under the radar or booking agents doing some customer service override. They are incentivized to rent cars, not rent to specific people. For them it doesn't matter if your car is unavailable, it got rented out which made them money.

Good luck getting a car and making your drive.

I've had great luck booking an enterprise rental car from an airport (this is key), and on the booking saying returning to the same airport.

After receiving the car, calling corporate and requesting a different city drop off. The only requirement being that it was dropped off at another airport.

Paid $75 a day for an SUV, from SF and dropped off in Bishop, CA. Reno was the same cost, as well but Bishop made sense. Did this a week ago. Worst case there's an additional cost but is it going to be $1,000 more... no way.

The reservation system probably overbooks to some extent because a certain percentage of reserved cars are never picked up.

Many rental outlets are franchise operations. It may say Enterprise or Budget on the sign but it's Joe's Car Rental LLC running the place. They may be slow at updating rentals and returns in the system. It's not all one homogenous company.

https://www.enterprise.com/en/global-franchise-opportunities...

> Please note that we do not franchise our brands in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Spain, France or Germany.

Same thing happened to me. My wife even called the night before and talked to someone (not at the airport, though) and confirmed. The guy at the pickup had to tell 6 people at 6am that they were only honoring reservations made at least three days prior, and all of them had confirmed numbers.

Likewise, no cars are available within a two hour drive. It looks like the first few days of problems sucked up any available inventory in the system.

On rental cars, I know it’s a meme, but my god it continually surprises me how it seems the agents have to rewrite the mainframe just to hand me keys for a pre-arranged reservation.