Hertz Rent A Car

My wife traveled alone this weekend for a friend's funeral and was somehow talked into buying $200 worth of insurance and fees for a 24 hour rental.

She rented a car for 16 hours and paid nearly $300.

I can't wrap my head around my what happened other than she was taken advantage of.

I came to this Hertz right after my flight landed. You get on the free shuttle and the car rental area is one of the stops. There was no line when I arrived and everything went pretty smoothly. Before arriving, I placed my order online (directly with hertz. Not 3rd party) for a Tesla Model 3. When I arrived, they showed me the fleet and let me choose one. I was very cautious with charges/fees and in the end, I can say that Hertz did everything appropriately and accurately. There were no surprise charges either at the time or months later.


TOLL ROADS
The one thing that I can see being a potential problem is the use of the toll pass and toll roads. I didn't have problems but that's probably because I didn't drive around through many toll roads. Hertz doesn't make the toll stuff that clear. You have two options. You can 1) tell them to sign you up for the toll option and you can drive thru toll roads at a fixed rate. Or 2) don't pay for the program and then get charged each time you drive thru a toll road. It really isn't clear which one to choose. They should provide a map of some sort and clearly mark the toll roads and suggest which option to go with based on where you say you are going. It would be nice if they showed you if the teslas can be set up to avoid toll roads as well.



TIP:
Be aware of how full the battery is upon pick up if you get a Tesla. My car was at around 70%. You may want to choose one that has more charge to save time later.


SERVICE
The lady who checked me in (Winnie, I believe), the lady at the parking exit, and the lady I checked out with when I returned the car all actually provided great service. All were friendly and helpful (I had lots of questions).

The car was good, transaction correct, and check in line reasonable. But Hertz is supposed to be one of the better rental car companies, especially with President's Circle status, and I paid a bit more than other options for that reason, so this experience was disappointing.

First, the desk agent grumbled extensively that I booked third party prepaid rather than direct reservation. Then, I had to wait 15 minutes at the gate to leave, first because the car ahead of me took a long time to clear, then because the car I chose apparently hadn't been checked in properly, and the gate agent had to wait on an extensive hold before he could complete that process so I could leave.

Twenty-five in line and one agent, 5:00 pm Saturday 8/26.
Seriously ?
Clean.
Quiet.
Airport location it's only saving grace.

As many others have observed, staff are rude. Gold board wasn't working and yet one person had to drug out from an office to help. she said if you are late your name won't be up but no names were up and all Hertz keep a name up for hours since nobody can predict the exact moment that you'll get out of the airport.

They had no cars. 11pm and empty.

I asked for a Presidents Circle car since I'm presidents club, but she said I don't get that upgrade. I said I'd take gold or 5 star, and she said they are all EV. I went out and found a Ford Edge and asked a staff woman if there was anything wrong with it. She seemed offended that I interrupted her reading her phone and said to go back to the counter.

More rude and unhelpful people.

I took the car and hoped for the best.

This is my third bad experience with Hertz in Boston. It is the black sheep of the Hertz org.

I've been a loyal Gold member with Hertz for 40 odd years, using them more times than I can remember for business and pleasure. I never had any problems with the company in that time until my June 29th rental @ their Logan Airport location in Boston.

That proved to be a bad experience. Really bad.

I made two reservations by phone for small SUV's on May 24th. Both were prepaid. I told the reservationist that I was going to check with my auto insurance company regarding coverage and was informed that I could decline the coverage at the counter when I picked up the car. It was strictly optional. Pickup was at Logan International Airport, Boston MA late afternoon, June 29th.

When I arrived @ Hertz that day, I declined the LDW @ the counter since I did have rental car coverage on my auto policy. My son-in-law, who signed as an additional driver for the second vehicle, witnessed me declining the LDW.

Meanwhile, there was a serious screwup in the garage during which 4 individuals in our party of 9 had to change from one SUV to another. They loaded up the first one only to be told it was reserved (but parked in non-reserved space). We changed cars and were finally on our way.

I dropped off both vehicles on July 6 and receiving the online invoice, I noticed we were charged for the LDW on both cars. The total came to $489.86. I immediately began calling Hertz in an effort to rectify the situation. When I finally reached an agent (after 30 minutes on hold) I was transferred to the billing department.

They took my information and told me that in order for me to get any credit on the bill, they would need to "escalate" the matter via an email to the Hertz desk at Logan to verify my story. I was told this would take anywhere from 7-10 business days to complete.

I should mention that regardless of what phone # Hertz provides (and there are several) for customer service, including one that allegedly would reach the counter at Logan Airport, all calls are routed to a call center in the Philippines.

The personnel there all have been instructed to adhere strictly to the Hertz playbook when it comes to customer complaints and have no authorization to credit anything back to the customer without approval from the mainland. In my case, I tried twice over a two-week period to get a "finding" on my case, only to be told both times that the charges were valid according to the desk at Logan.

As far as I'm concerned, outsourcing the help desk offshore is a total con by the company since they know that there are cultural, language and procedural barriers that the customer must overcome to get any satisfaction. When the sum total of those obstacles get in the way, the customer abandons the call and pays the bill.

How dare Hertz question my honesty in this matter, especially with someone else present to verify my story? And what planet was the counter person on when I explicitly refused the LDW and was yet charged for it? Finally, and perhaps most important, why is there no domestic manager available @ Hertz to resolve these disputes in favor of the customer?

This was a brutal experience that really left a bad taste in my mouth. I hope Hertz discovers this review and gets in touch with me (like they said they would after I provided a withering review to their survey email, but, of course, did not). That would be the standup thing for them to do. We'll see.

Unfortunately this place is understaffed so it takes forever to get your car. I was there at around 2am and the line was crazy. There was no sense of urgency and the people that work there clearly don't want to be there. Every person takes like 20 minutes to get their car so if they are understaffed, plan on waiting a while. You may want to try a different company. This would not be my first choice if I come back. I also found the card to be overpriced for what you get.

I just had the WORST experience at this Hertz location. When I arrived at the Hertz Gold Service Area there was a mass of irritated customers because there were no cars available..that they were coming in and being serviced but wait could be long. The agent told me that I could get a car right away, however, if I went with electric and could choose from whatever was in the Compact 3 or Midsize 2 areas. I have NEVER driven an all electric vehicle so had no idea what to expect. It turns out the car I left with had almost no charge at all and within 10 minutes of leaving Hertz was flashing critically LOW charge! I pulled off the highway in South Boston and found a garage near the hospital that had Charge Point stations. After 5 attempts I finally got the car charging and the screen in the car said full charge would be at 11:00 am the next day! I had planned to stay in Plymouth but now had to get a hotel twice as expensive in South Boston and then lug my suitcases 10 blocks to the Hampton Inn. WTH!! How could they give me a completely uncharged car??????

Hertz rental at Chicago - Lincoln Park was a terrible experience. First, it took over an hour to get our car after showing up. There were three customers in front of us and there was only one representative. Then we were told they didn't have our car ready and needed to clean it. Once we got to the counter we were informed that they do not do after hours drop-off at this location and that since we were prepaid we were unable to change our drop-off location. I reviewed all of my contract language and information for the location and neither fact was published. I then tried to call support and was told again that they would not change our drop-off location. I asked to talk to a supervisor and was put on-hold for 1 hour and eventually gave up. Hertz customer service, IT systems, and organization is a complete disaster.

There are so many better alternatives than Hertz. Don't rent from them even it seems like a deal. It will just end up costing you more in time and frustration.

This location is not in fact located in the airport. Additionally, expect to spend about 45 minutes to an hour "picking up" your car.

Once you fly in and get to baggage claim, you have to take a bus which theoretically comes by every 5 or so minutes. Two stops later (which are unannounced and signage free) you walk into the center, go downstairs and walk into what is essentially a clear glass office to check in.

It's loud in the garage and music is blasting from some other car company, but we easily chose our car and had a great experience with it with no issues dropping it off at Burlington after a few days.

That being said, would we rent a car from this location again? No, absolutely not. We'd find another location and Lyft to it. It was incredibly stressful to have very little signage, not really know where to go, all while shlepping baggage after a long flight.

But the car worked out, so there's that.