This is really me just having to rant for a minute…
Remember when I mentioned How I Saved a Thousand Dollars or More Buying a Car several months back?
Well, one of the “perks” of having done so was that we got a free week rental from Hertz as a bonus. That wasn’t something we were aware of before purchasing the car but it was a nice perk that we filed away for future use.
Thus far, however, it’s been nothing but a pain in the rear.
You see, a few months ago we thought it would be nice to take a long family trip to Yellowstone–before the supervolcano blows :)–and maybe even The Grand Canyon on our way back to Kansas City to visit family and friends.
As it turns out, one of the restrictions Hertz had was that the car had to be returned to the place of rental which wasn’t going to work for us because we really only wanted to drive out to Kansas City and fly back to Seattle.
I can understand that requirement (to return the car to where we rented it) a bit and so we thought, no big deal, we’ll try again later.
My wife tried again about two weeks ago to rent a minivan because we had family coming into town and it would be easier to take just one car instead of two. As you might suspect, it seems our free rental points don’t apply to minivans for some reason… just crappy little economy cars.
By this time my wife was fed up and just said “forget it” with a few more words added in I suppose.
Just today I figured that since I was taking an upcoming trip to California that I might as well give it a shot myself and, at the very least, put a few thousand miles on a car that wasn’t my own.
Shockingly, this didn’t work out either because for some odd reason the dates and/or city that I wanted to rent the car were in blackout dates.
Here’s the last part of my conversation (more or less as I remember them):
Hertz: “Those dates or city are blackout dates.” (meaning my “free” rental doesn’t apply)
Me: “What does that mean?”
(I don’t think I got much of an answer to this question.)
Hertz: “Would you like to rent on another date or in another city?”
Me: “No. I need the car for those specific dates because I have a trip coming up AND I prefer that city because I don’t want to travel hours to rent from somewhere else.”
Hertz: “Would you like to rent the car without your discount points?”
Me: “Uhmmm…. NO! That’s the reason why I wanted to rent the car… it’s supposed to be free.”
After some more questioning about when there might not be blackout dates and never really getting an answer, I gave up.
All I can say is that this is ridiculous.
I can understand some basic restrictions like “don’t take our car to Uzbekistan and trade it for drug money” or whatever but if you’re going to offer me something that I, as a customer, feel I should be able to use without too much trouble… please don’t make me just through hoops and hoops to use your damn “free” points!
Now, instead of being happy that I got something I could have honestly used in at least three different situations I’m just frustrated (and so is my wife) and it’s ultimately made me NOT want to rent from Hertz specifically.
That’s my rant. Have a great day!
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