Best/worst car rental company between Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, Budget

[Drew]

I often use Costco travel, though this time found the best rate through Delta airlines, which also gives me miles for the rental. It takes time, but checking often shows nearly daily price changes, at least at major hubs. If price is not the major concern, then I suppose one wouldn't need to use the internet.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

My experience with Enterprise was you got the best deals from being on their email list, but there used to be about a two week lag before the deals started showing up.

Having a reservation for a car means nothing other than guaranteeing the rental price for a specific class of vehicle. It's happened at least twice that I had a reservation but there were no cars on the lot (Enterprise in-town location). I also took advantage of cheap cars being rented out first at a larger site, which resulted in getting a nicer vehicle for cheap.

[Mr645]

We had a really nice experience with Hertz recently. Wife signed up for the free Gold program, which got us a free upgrade, and we used American Express which got us another free upgrade. So using a trick I found online we went to the counter and asked what class of car they are out of. The CSR told us they were out of full size cars. So we asked for a fun size car, to which he says were out so I can upgrade you to a large SUV or level 1 luxury car. We took the luxury car and then upgraded 2 more levels using Gold program and Amex. $57 per day and were driving a BMW 7 series sedan for the week

[Ombligo]

Mr645 wrote:
We took the luxury car and then upgraded 2 more levels using Gold program and Amex. $57 per day and were driving a BMW 7 series sedan for the week

I once reserved a basic Opal in Germany for two weeks, it was the cheapest thing with an automatic that Sixt had. When we got to the rental agency in Frankfort, they didn't have it. The counter guy hmm'd and delayed awhile. Another customer saw that I was having issues keeping up with the guy's German as he spoke to the backshop. He leaned over and told me to stick to my demand, that they had another automatic but were trying to avoid giving it to me.

I did and that was how I ended up driving a BMW M6 instead of a two-seat economy car for no additional cost (other than fuel, the M6 was an 10-cyl, the Opal was a 3-cyl). The Audubon was really fun in that car.

[rz]

I've had good and bad experiences with most of them. Enterprise was great when I was on extended business travel, but someone else on my team had the rental car. On the weekends, instead of relying on the one person with the car, I had Enterprise pick me up, drive me to their location and then drive me back to my hotel when I returned the car. Weekend rate was really cheap, too. But another time, they told me that they'd be open on New Year's Day, when I was scheduled to fly home, only to find that they were closed and I had to drive a few miles to an empty lot and wait quite a while for a van to pick me up while I sat in the freezing cold. Almost missed my flight.

Budget charged me for using their EZ-pass toll, even though I had the metal cover over it and paid cash for the toll. It wasn't worth disputing, as I had no proof I paid the toll. I was not happy.

[MrNoBody]

decades later and some things haven't changed...

[Racer X]

I was wondering yesterday if I could find a gif of that.