Hertz is Number One

At least in our book - Hertz is number one. We tried a cheaper option once - we booked and paid through EasyCar, picked it up at Alamo and then had problems with Europcar trying to bill us for two tires. The place where we picked the car up had an atmosphere somewhere between carnival and bedlam. People were told that the keys were in the cars and to just go outside (in the snow, mind you) and pick a car. In the midst of this chaos we had a rather expensive camera stolen while we were choosing a car. We didn't even notice it was missing until the next day. Of course when I called the place to see if someone had turned it in, it was just as I expected - "No, nothing like that here." And why would it be? It's not like we drove away and left it at the curb - someone took it. To make matters worse, they had given us a car without working windshield wipers - a bad idea when it's snowy and slushy. They were not prepared to bring us another car; we had to return that one and pick up another. Thankfully, we were able to turn it in at Luton instead of driving all the way back to Heathrow. When we got our Citibank MasterCard statement, we saw that we had been billed $400 two times by Europcar. When I called to find out what that was about we were told that one of the tires on the Skoda was flat. The date shown on the flat tire was nearly 10 days after we'd turned the car in. There were more problems with that - 1. There were two charges for one tire. 2. No one in their right mind would pay $400 for an entire Skoda, much less pay that much for a single tire for one. 3. When we reserved the car, we paid for the "No Risk" Insurance option, which meant that no matter what happened to the car, it was covered by insurance. We went round and round over this for over three months until the good folks at Citibank finally decided that we had proved our point and reversed the charge. But the experience was a complete nightmare!

We don't know who was to blame for all that. It was all so confusing. Remember, we booked and paid through EasyJet, we picked it up at Alamo, but Europcar was the company that kept charging our credit card. I couldn't get straight answers out of anyone. We suspect that the folks at Europcar are scammers. They claimed that they didn't honor the EasyCar insurance - (How could they honor part of the rental agreement but not the other??). I was never sure who to call because there were so many people involved in the transaction. We got absolutely no help from Alamo on either side of the Atlantic and EasyCar is much like its parent company, EasyJet - nothing easy about it. And I had to get really upset with Citi Cards before they would do anything. But all in all it was a learning experience.

Now we stick with Hertz. And we pay with American Express. American Express is much quicker to take the side of the consumer over the merchant. And as long as we pay with American Express, AmEx insurance kicks in and covers any damage to the car. The other great thing about Hertz is that we always reserve the car and pay for it in advance. We always reserve a compact car. They invariably offer us an upgrade to a bigger car with more features for something in the neighborhood of $15 to $30 additional per day. We always turn it down and then end up getting it for the price of the compact car because they don't actually have any compact cars - even though we reserved one. I don't mind getting the roomier car with more options at the compact car price. This trip we have a VW Golf (turbo diesel) with a GPS system that was offered to us for an additional 15 pounds per day. When we said we'd prefer to stay with the compact, they informed us that there were no compacts and that we could have the VW at the compact rate. Sweet!