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Comment by corywatilo | Hacker News Reader

Good riddance.

They tried to reboot a few months back but the damage had already been done. The people who really wanted this sort of business to succeed (including myself) had already tried to embrace them, but got burned too much in the past to risk giving them another shot. My guess is the only potential market going forward were people who randomly came across FlightCar when searching for rental cars. My money is on this being an acquihire. The business failed.

(I previously wrote an open letter to FlightCar, based on my personal experiences, which also summed up the general consensus amongst everyone who had tried it in the past: http://watilo.com/open-letter-to-flightcar)

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What do you find particularly terrible about renting from one of the major agencies?

I travel frequently for work and rent across all the major rental agencies (Hertz, Avis, National) and their discount subsidiaries (Thrifty, Budget, Alamo). These days the process is super smooth.

If you register with the agency's free rewards program, the process is usually:

1) Bypass counter to the rewards members area 2) Pick up pre-assigned car or choose your own from the designated pickup areas 3) Drive to exit, show drivers ID, and leave.

When returning, most agencies allow you to just drop it off and get your receipt delivered via email.

I've tried flightcar a few times and have no complaints about the experience itself - it just wasn't any better than going with a major agency, with more downsides: 1) weirder off-airport location (makes returning more difficult - vast majority of airports have clear signs for car rental dropoffs that are super easy to follow) 2) not as consistent in terms of car quality (major agencies standardize their lineups across a few models and years) and maintenance - harder to change/swap cars 3) not as good support (stuck somewhere in random CT, hertz locations everywhere, flightcar = BOS)

I'm price and car conscious, meaning: 1) I usually want a specific car (high capacity, off-road capable, etc.), and 2) I hate how expensive the big boys are. Flightcar was also a great concept for my wife and me, as we spend a good amount of time in another state where Flightcar had operations, so we could leave a car there and use it when we were in town.

When I can, I rent with Sixt, which is typically way cheaper (though their customer service is also horrible and still has the same issues being a car rental agency). It's not that the rental agencies are always that expensive, but when the taxes and fees get tacked on, it's absurd and it's not something I want to support when I don't have to. (Energy Surcharge, Customer Facility Charge, Vehicle License Fee, Concession Recovery Fee.) It's like a restaurant charging you for a burger, then having fees for the condiments that come on it, the booth you're sitting in, and for having the lights on while you're there. Recently in Costa Rica, we rented a car for $10/day, but with fees, it came to about $100/day. But I digress...

Since I always look for deals, it means I'm switching between rental agencies and not sticking with one, so I've never seen the point in setting up rewards account. But your comment makes things sounds way too easy, so maybe I'll take the time and give it a shot. Thanks for the tip!

I'll just add that your viewpoint is just the opposite side of the coin. I'm not as price conscious as I am convenience conscious.

It's not worth my time and anxiety levels having to deal with the side-effects of the budget choice which you listed out.

I also get a pretty nice corporate discount from my work which makes the big boys a no brainer. Although I still used the main car rental places before and the process was super smooth. Literally need a car and sign up for it in 10 minutes. Show up and get the car in ~5 minutes. At airports with kiosks you scan your license and go straight to get the car.

I really apologize if this comes off as critical, because I honestly don't mean it to be. But by your description, you sound like the worst kind of customer for a car rental agency, because:

1. You have specific, high-performance desires 2. You are very price conscious 3. You show little/no brand loyalty

I don't think these are in any way "negative" traits, but it's not hard to see how catering to these traits is not going to be a winning move for any business where there are much more profitable customers to be had.

Not really - the OP has expressed a willingness to try any available options. If a company were to get their act together and offer what they want, the rental company would presumably have a very valuable repeat customer.

End of the day, choosing a company for "loyalty" when there's no incentive to do so is just a waste of money.

I have to agree. His FlightCar experience was demanding a new luxury sedan (his complaint about booking some and getting a 2004 A4 is valid)... and complaining that a car rental might be $100, not $10, a day.

(I do realize that the two examples weren't the same instance.)

I really dislike the upsell attempts. I favour Alamo - book online, use the kiosk on arrival to avoid the upsells. From there, the car selection is great, papers check at the exit is always polite and the return process (mostly LAX but also elsewhere) has been excellent each time. Very smooth, unrushed, very friendly.

I imagine the main advantage of soemthing like FlightCar would've been near-airport parking while you're away and little else? Providing shuttles as well as the big providers would be a bit of a challenge for a start-up.

Renting from Enterprise in Anchorage (who were pissed that I had been picked up from the airport and taken to a 'near downtown' branch - clearly for locals, because the rental rates were also half the price of the airport branch)...

When I said I wanted to waive the "optional" (to the extent that even their own printed paperwork said "not required to rent the vehicle") waivers and reduced/no deductibles (because between my fire/EMS vehicle insurance and credit cards, all their harbingers of doom about how I might not actually be covered weren't applicable), they outright refused.

"No, to reduce fraud if you want to waive our insurance, you actually have to open a claim with your insurer so we know that it will be covered"... Uhh??? Apropos of how nonsensical this is, isn't "opening an insurance claim without an incident sounds kinda ... fraudulent ... to me". "Sorry sir, policy."

Whatever, needed a vehicle, paid the extra, came back the next day to speak to the manager. CSR who was there the day before butted in, "Oh, no sir, you must have misunderstood me!". Outright lies. I was so tempted to send my girlfriend in later to try to catch them out again.

But most of the time, fairly painless. But when not so, then very painful.

Not justifying the behavior in any way, but the reason is that almost every car rental agency has certain quotas for extra coverage, upsells, etc. that they must meet every week. The pressure to meet these are enormous, which can lead to the behavior you mentioned.

Of course - that's where they make their profit, since they self-insure. But threatening to not rent to me if I don't... (but as you said, not that you're justifying).

Enterprise is the most terrible of the major agencies. Hertz and Avis are pretty decent to work with. National is "meh".

I used to do a lot of business travel (40+ wks/year in some cases) and rented exclusively with Hertz or Avis. Never really had much in the way of a problem with them.

I agree Hertz is pretty good. And they're good across countries. At Ben Gurion in Israel they couldn't be smoother, just like they are in the States. Great customer service.

Hertz quietly introduced a nationwide rule change this year. Now if you decline their fuel service (which is generally way above market price), you have to bring a copy of your receipt from the gas station. Otherwise they charge you for a full tank of gas!

Any system in which employees are incentivized by post or performance evaluation metrics to upsell and not strictly monitored to prevent this is going to involve something like it. Not that it's a justification, just that it's common in lots of places, because incentive policies are often poorly thought through.

It's interesting to hear this. I used FlightCar (as a renter) quite a bit in its early days (2013) and at that time the customer service was unbelievably great, to the point that I actively preferred FlightCar over other rental car companies. I haven't traveled as much the last couple of years, though; it sounds like their customer service hasn't scaled. I'm guessing that a lot of my customer service interactions fell into the "do things that don't scale" category.

Based on the following comment by the employee, this was actually a case of "do shortsighted things to save money."

"He moved the customer support to Philippines because he can get someone for like 10-12$ an hr. Great idea.. right? Let's connect the customers who are loaning flightcar a 30-40k car to someone in Philippines who does not understand english or even knows what a floor mat is."

Actually, English is regularly spoken in the Philippines. They were s US territory at one point in history.

What the problem typically is is not a language barrier. These outsourced call centers are typically boiler rooms. The agents are incentivized to close the call, not fix the problem.

If it was an acquihire, wouldn't this press release more reflect that rather than saying it shutdown?

Edit: reading it again it seems maybe there are people continuing on with Mercedes Benz

Edit2: geez just read your post sans audio. That is pretty terrible

It wasn't an acquihire.

Source: Know someone who until recently ... worked at flightcar

The comment by flightcar employee was incredibly disturbing.

It was, but bear in mind also totally unverified.

Flightcar was the most abominable startup I can remember, which sucks, because they had an awesome concept. If only they weren't completely inept at operations/external relations. . .

Rental cars are generally not treated well by renting customers. That's why the big boys sell them at steep discounts (fleet vehicles) after a couple years on the job. Didnt you expect that your vehicle would take on some wear and tear if you rented it out? Seems similar to the compromise made by an Airbnb host: "I know my AirBnB guests might spill something in my apartment, or break a glass, but the benefits of the extra cash justify it."

Zendesk does have a spam folder.

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