thumbs up for hertz

my wife's grandpa is most likely going to pass away over the weekend. he's in hospice care and they stopped feeding him a few days ago due to some kind of twisted bowels and some sort of aneurysm, coupled with his long time dementia.

her parents and brother and sister in law are up in northwestcentral michigan for christmas and returning home sunday, and she wanted to go up to see her grandfather one last time. they are available to give her a ride home, as it's a decent drive from cleveland and not the easiest to do with a 19 month old kid in tow, so i suggested she rent a car to head up and then hitch a ride back with her brother.

there is an enterprise and hertz within 3 miles of the house. Enterprise for a one way rental requires you pick up and drop off at an airport, so they wanted us to pick up the car from the cleveland airport 10 miles of traffic away instead of 3 miles away. Their quote to me was $298 including a fee of $150 for a one way trip for the equivalent of a kia rio/chevy aveo. I've done business with enterprise in the past with mixed results

I checked with hertz, they are a relatively new location here. I was able to go online and schedule to pick up the car here and drop it off at the nearest location to where my wife is going without having to deal with the rental car area at the airport here, which is a cluster you know what. I got an online promo code to use to get additional $5 off, and got her a malibu/equivalent for $48 including tax for the one way trip. saving $250 off the quote from enterprise.

props to hertz for being reasonable with their prices.

some one at Hertz is bound to get fired over this

Funny, up here they are in trouble for insurance scams.

wbjones wrote: some one at Hertz is bound to get fired over this

i LOL'd.

pat, sorry to hear about the situation. we wish you the best.

I do not want to poo poo on a good customer experience, but I know that rental car companies (as well as rental truck/trailer companies) will generally charge you a lot more for one way moves when you are taking a car from a place they need equipment to a place where they have eqiupment, than the other way around. After hurricane katrina and rita hit the gulf coast, Houston TX had so many penske and uhaul trucks from people moving away from New orleans and vicinity that they were actually putting ads up to PAY people to drive the trucks back to New Orleans, where they had NO equipment left.

Knowing this, I needed a one way penske truck/car hauler from WV to TX. I called and was quoted something like $1200. After a discussion with the operator, she revealed to me that winston/salem regional hub had an excess of the trucks I needed and if I could pick it up there she could drop the rate to something like $590. It was like a 5 hour ride on motorcycle, which I then rode up into the back of the truck and strapped down. The 5 hour drive back to WV did not cost me $600 in fuel. lol

I find Enterprise to be reasonably priced and Hertz to be sky high - try renting reasonably at Minneapolis - St. Paul Intl airport......

Based on my past experience, Hertz is the only one that usually does not charge a huge premium for one way rentals. I think all the cars are centrally owned, unlike enterprise where the local branch owns them, and then they have to go and get it back.

For some reason, I always associated Hertz with higher prices. During a recent trip, I got a car from them--excellent price and great service. I was pleasantly surprised.

I'm an Avis guy. Preferred service frequent flyer yadda yadda. I love the bus dropping you off at your car with the keys in it ready to go. In the cold places they'll even warm up the car for you.