Last time I rented a car from Hertz, it was totally touchless with no human interaction. Walk in, find your name on the screen which shows the parking spot your car is in, and go. Perhaps things have changed.
But when it works it does work well. I have the board down to a science: shuttle to hertz, look for my name on board, walk to car directly as indicated by board, drive away with the only human interaction being the person scanning the car as I exit.
As a customer, I completely get that feeling.
As someone who has worked in auto rental (although for Budget Truck), the reality is usually along the lines of rental clerks making slightly above minimum wage, the entire city getting drastically overbooked by corporate, and customers who were due to return (and counted on for availability) not doing so. They have no urgency because it happens on a regular basis and they're the ones getting screamed at all day because of it even though they have no control over it.
Also I believe one of them (Hertz or maybe Enterprise) told me if I did the pay-in-advance deal they would guarantee a car was there because they'd bring one in from the airport if needed. Some locations have very few cars and can be hit-or-miss.
"When can I see a refund on my card?" I asked, as I pulled up Uber to go somewhere else (because I was not about to use my personal card, on principle with their behavior).
"Sorry, prepaid reservations are nonrefundable".
Uhh, no. You're not going to accept a reservation from me using a credit card, and then decide that my photo ID matching that credit card is insufficient, deny me a rental, and deny me a refund.
That got sorted out, but took more than one call to Corporate.
Or one call to your CC chargeback department, which would bite them more
Capital One sided with the airline and closed my case. Guess you can't depend on chargebacks like I thought you could.
Discover was my favorite. They had a forgiveness policy and wouldn't raise your rate just because another card did. And their website was very friendly to use.
(In fact it's automated and two clicks away).
Of course there are expensive consequences when that system is abused.
Is it more like a wire transfer, or a CC payment?
What are the expensive consequences you are talking about?
> What are the expensive consequences you are talking about?
The system offers no security for the merchant - in fact cancelled charges cost a fee, even if the charge was completely valid.
* yes - physical signature on paper, except when paying online
** this is a topic for a full comment on it's own, but here's the gist: Under German law you can't "take back" your money from an company that has filed for bankruptcy - in fact even payments made to you before the filing might be clawed back by the administrator - which means that you will receive (and customers from insolvent airlines have received) an angry letter demanding the money back. With chargebacks this is less likely to happen as the chargeback will be paid for by the merchant's bank, not the merchant directly, but the legal situation is unclear.
There was specifically a special directive by US Dept of Transportation directing airlines to refund customers for any flights that were modified or canceled after pandemic restrictions started in Mar 2020.
https://www.transportation.gov/briefing-room/us-department-t...
https://www.transportation.gov/airconsumer/ticket-refunds
As of now, they even explicitly say non refundable tickets are refundable if airlines cancel:
https://www.transportation.gov/individuals/aviation-consumer...
> Non-refundable tickets - Passengers who purchase non-refundable tickets are not entitled to a refund unless the airline makes a promise to provide a refund or the airline cancels a flight or makes a significant schedule change.
I am also confused how Orbitz would be involved in tdeck’s situation. Either they paid Orbitz, or they paid Singapore Airlines, but either way only one of them would be able to refund them.
As for Orbitz, I used them to book the ticket, and SQ's customer service told me they couldn't refund me because they had a policy that only the agent could modify the reservation. When I tried to contact Orbitz they just told me I would need to talk to the airline.
Yes people tend to have a slightly delusional view of how effective chargebacks can be based on limited experiences. If you're fighting with a small merchant like a local store or a non famous online merchant you're going to win basically every time.
If you're fighting with a rental car company, an airline, a hotel chain, a household name company, or similar, it's an entirely different story. The interaction has much more to do with who's more valuable to the card issuer than who's right.
If it’s easy to book then not turn up, people will. Then if you know a significant percentage on average doesn’t turn up, it would be lost profit to not overbook.
Fully paid non-refundable services should, I agree, very conservative in overbooking.
Can confirm that getting off the shuttle, looking up at the Hertz Gold board expecting to see either a parking space number or a section listed by your name, and instead seeing "See Agent" is absolutely rage inducing.