KnitKnacks

« Awesome Photo | Main | This and That revisited... »

March 20, 2006

Oh Hertz, You Hurt Me So!

I've Chronicled our adventures with Hertz rentals from time to time ( Here,and Here and Here) and it's usually had to do with Upgrades for the Man with the Gold Card. I hesitate to talk about his business too much because ..well, it's his business. If I tag along and am going to drive the car too, well, then maybe I can complain about getting the Minivan or the Lincoln Town Car while still requesting a Compact. Ahem...sometimes the humor is lost when one gets a boat of a car in a metropolitan area.

The Man with the Gold Card uses Hertz for the convenience and ease in picking up his vehicle...he's got the art of reading the board with his name and car stall assignment down to a science and rarely has to break stride while on his way through the rental car garage.

I make his reservations; I still haven't got the formula down for really getting the car he wants but for the most part it works for us. BTW, Hertz...save those upgrades to Town Cars and other biggies for the vacation traveler who will be thrilled with them! all the Man with the Gold Car wants is a nondescript car in the range of a Corolla or similar size ( Snort, 3 years ago I was looking for Mazda 626s!). Can't tell you when the last time he got one of those.

Ok, Back to this week's issue. I've never really encountered a problem with the price though...before this weekend, that is. I thought we had figured out the issues but when I went to reproduce it for the purposes of this blog, I found the opposite to be "true". I'm so confused, I don't know what True is anymore. There in lies my rub with Hertz....I now feel betrayed...they really are no better than any other company doing business. Why had I kept those rose colored glasses on for so long? I feel violated, hurt, disappointed, wronged and just may break into a Country Western song at any moment now!

Oh? The issue you ask? Well, I needed to rent a car for just short of two weeks. I got a price of over $1000 to begin with, then realized I had not "logged in" to the site so his Gold Member discount wasn't calculated. Whew...it went down to $917. Hmmm..the Man with the Gold card was not happy with that so he went checking on Sat morning at Avis and National and other competitors and found huge differences in pricing. This sooooo needed looking into because it just didn't make sense.

Well Suh, imagine my shock when he looked for the same quote and wasn't signed in as The man with gold Card; Mr No Name was going to get that car for $525! HHmmm...The scientist in him started changing the search parameters and I'm sure he had a system but the changes had to do with things like the time of day and signing in or not...or even designating whether he was arriving via air or not or even whether he was traveling on "Official Company Business" since he has a Business Account discount. The prices seemed to double under the "perks"....!!!

Today, I did some more testing but found the time of day rental price in my queries being opposite what I found over the weekend. Hhhmm...now I'm confused again...........

Ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...the fog has lifted. Silly Me..TWO WORDS..BUSINESS TRAVELER! Hertz is no better than any one else when it comes to screwing the Business Traveler who by the way IS their REPEAT customers, Who tend to be their LOYAL customers, Who they claim to REWARD for their continued patronage. Seems the price doubles when it would be the time of day for a Business Traveler to pick up his car...PM on Sunday night and AM during the week.

Shame on me...it's my own fault...I know better than that with the Airlines. Making reservation is such an adventure..time of day, connections, season, destination, school vacations. One could be traveling the same route 3-4 times a month BUT let one of those trips overlap with a holiday or school vacation and the price doubles. Screwing everyone of course BUT really screwing the frequent business traveler.

But you know what part really bothers me about this whole scheme? It's the notion that Big Business is picking up the tab for Business Travelers. That Big Business doesn't care about the price of travel, the Man with the Gold Card just needs to get where he is going and it's not like it's coming out of his pocket so it's ok to stick it to the Big business who is employing the Man with the Gold Card....Wrong. It's just plain wrong and it IS coming out of the pocket of this Man with the Gold Card.

Once again I'm struck dumb by my own naivete...I'm so embarrassed for not having realized this before now. ...and I call myself a seasoned traveler. HA! I think I need to go tune by guitar and wail a bit more.

Posted by frani at March 20, 2006 09:00 AM

Comments

and to follow your theory of Big Business, I just priced a new computer and realized that my company has an employee discount. So when I put in the same exact specs - the cost with the employee discount was $25 more.

DA

Posted by: DA at March 20, 2006 02:32 PM

Ack! This just frosts me no end! I think it's criminal. I've also seen where at a hotel the AAA or AARP rate is higher than for Joe Shmoe surfing on in. Grrrr makes me crazy but wary now of "deals"

Posted by: Fran at March 20, 2006 02:39 PM

boy, this is just wrong. good for you for blogging--

Posted by: bunnybeth at March 22, 2006 10:39 PM

Post a comment