Car rental throwing away money? | Hacker News Reader

Car rental throwing away money?

games.greggman.com

50 pointskristianp66 comments

I once asked a friendly Budget agent what they were doing when they typed furiously when I rented a car. They said they were copying data from the reservation system to the rental system, which don’t communicate with each other.

That Budget/AVIS system (or one of them, apparently) does seem ancient so this wouldn’t surprise me in the slightest

One is an SAP system that has been there for decades. The other is an SAP system that has been there for 4 years.

They get to upsell you at the counter which they love to do for people who don’t rent often - its basically free money . For people who do rent often they don’t want to upsell cause they know it leaves a bad taste in the mouth so they just want the rental business.

In the before times, I rented with Hertz on three occasions. I was upgraded to a larger vehicle for free. I still can’t tell if it was deliberate or a coincidence.

This can be a plus, but it can also be a minus if you are planning to drive a long distance and don't want to double your gas bill.

I’ve had this happen as well. Unfortunately I only book — and want to drive — sedans, so I learned I have to make sure to say so to the rental company employee if they say they’re upgrading me for free. Even then, sometimes they have so few sedans that I’m stuck with the “upgrade” SUV.

It's not an upgrade per se, it's just whatever vehicle they have available. If they're running low on sedans (which often happens), they'll start giving out SUVs to people who'll accept them, keeping sedans in reserve who want them.

NYC has some crazy rental experiences because the lots are so small. One time I got "upgraded" to a 3 row minivan (which costs 2-3X the base economy car rental price) because that's all they had left. It was not the ideal car for a road trip for my girlfriend and I, and we ended up spending more on gas, but they didn't have anything else available.

Similarly I've often gotten free upgrades to convertible sports cars (e.g. a Mustang) just because they have a lot of them and they have extra on that particular day and want to reserve more boring options for picky people.

I convinced a rental agent to upgrade me for free from a compact to a convertible Mustang… in Minneapolis… the day before Christmas Eve… at midnight. The most fun and stupid decision I had made in a while. I got caught in a snow storm and ended up driving 200 miles on the interstate at 30 mph because it was literally the fastest I could go without fishtailing. Worth it.

This is a big part of it. They make a lot of edge on the liability and disability waiver (many credit cards come with this benefit already) and fuel pre-purchasing (pay for a full tank, even if you use an eighth of it). Given that many folks who line up at the counter are first-time or infrequent travelers, it's enough of a pull to keep them open.

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i'd be interested to learn about it

I'd be interested in talking with you about this

Thanks for the tip.

This is why I think it's ridiculous when car rental is recommended as a solution to the range issues of EVs. There is so much friction, have to shop around to get a good rental price, pickup and drop off the car and ask someone to pick you up (or uber), very unpleasant waiting at the counter, mileage restrictions, driver restrictions (can't ask your friend to help with taking turns driving on a road trip). Compare all of that to just getting in your own car and going. If deciding on whether to go on a road trip to somewhere like a national park, this can mean the difference between going and just giving up because of all the hassle in renting cars.

EDIT: I'm not against EVs, just against dismissing the EV issues with ideas like "go rent a car" as if that's a realistic solution considering how inconvenient it is.

I can't think of any range issues that'd necessitate me renting a car instead of just driving my EV. Can you share some examples? The national park one doesn't make sense to me-- why not just use a fast charger?

I work for a car rental company and can assure you that it is not some evil ploy to upsell you. It comes down to this: you are renting a really expensive ($30K-100K) asset and they need to make sure you are not trying to steal it. This can take a few minutes if you are unknown to the company. If you think about it this way, 5-10 minutes to make this decision is pretty damn quick.

Why do they need to re-do this process every time someone rents a car? With the equivalent programs from companies I've rented with, they check your info at the counter once and from the on its just a cursory glance as you leave the lot. It doesn't seem like there's anything stopping them from making the quick one-time check the default.

I know it feels that way, but we don't redo anything if you have a valid license and card on file. The lines are long at airports because planes deplane at similar intervals and there are a lot of travelers that come to the location without this information on file (think cruise ships, travel agency bookings, discount site bookings). If you download the rental app and take advantage of loyalty programs then you can skip the craziness.

It shouldn't be more complicated than selling alcohol to an adult, really.

Sixt gave me the car I reserved in 3 minutes time, half of which was me walking to the car, no upsale attempts, just a quick driver license check, some instructions regarding EV charging and here's your key sir have a nice day. That's how it should be.

If I were to steal the car, I'd bet they'd have no trouble tracking it down, as the technology involved is trivial nowadays.

This same experience is provided by every other brand via loyalty programs. The counter does not exist for loyalty (or known) members, it exists for all the other customers that come to the company via third party vendors (travel agency, third parties, etc). Most of those people do not have a license or credit card on file.

Signing up to Gold is removing the friction of getting a rental, and makes it easier to get a car next time. That brings you back to Hertz. It's the same as any other rewards programme designed to improve brand loyalty, but instead of a discount or free coffee or whatever, the reward is "having less hassle buying the product".

The author signed up for Gold. Next time they want a rental they'll use Hertz. It works.

The author will use Hertz because Hertz+Gold is less hassle than Competitor+no gold. But why are the competitors complicit in that? If another car rental company offered the Gold experience to everyone, wouldn't that help them outcompete Hertz?

Most of them do. Get on the bus, tell them your name, get off the bus and walk to the car. Key is in, trunk is open. Load, sit, drive off. Avis Preferred, National Emerald, ...

True! I use Budget Fastbreak usually. Same experience.

A lot of car rental chains have this program now.

The other reason I haven't seen mentioned here for requiring non-Gold customers to go to the counter is so that they can check photo ID matches the person physically there and matches the name on the credit/debit card. Hertz even makes Gold members go to the counter one time after changing your profile card to get it validated with a photo ID comparison + swipe.

hertz employee here. we are working on improving car rental experience with modern product and engineering practice. if you are interested in working on such problem dm me.

nice, by the sound of this comment, they are investing a bit in this. Is this for every hertz around the world (not sure how the company is structured). All I know is hertz was a "stonk" people were gambling on a while back ha ha.

We are building product and engineering capability in SF bay area, CA and Seattle, WA. Hertz is a US company with global footprint. The business has tremendous potential to be unlocked with modern software.

Is Hertz remote friendly?

Hybrid in Seattle WA and SF, CA.

Thanks for the info. Sounds potentially interesting but not if you’re geographically tied.

I'm a WA resident but not going into the office and not relocating to Seattle.

Would be game otherwise though.

It’ll never happen, but the first car rental company that abandons the timeshare presentation model of make-the-customer-wait-an-eternity-while-we-try-to-upsell-them will make all their competitors abandon it.

Because once I hear Hertz, or whoever, isn’t going to make me wait an extra half an hour to rent a car anymore (while enduring high-pressure salesmen trying to get me to get the “extended coverage” which is overpriced at best and useless at worst), I’m thrilled to go with them exclusively, and perhaps even if they’re substantially more expensive. Other companies will be forced to follow suit.

But executives don’t get paid to abandon tried and true customerphobic business models in favor of one where you lose upsells and save on staff, but you more than make it up in volume.

Business travelers like me hate hate hate rental car counters at airports. They’re the seventh level of hell. I’ll take Ubers for about the same overall cost, and Turo as plan B. It’s been like this for the past 5 years.

I don’t doubt your sincerity in wanting to improve the car rental experience, but Sinclair’s law applies.

Thanks for the comment.

You can use Hertz today without going to the counter. Just sign up "Gold membership". Maybe the first time you go you need to verify your ID and credit card but after that you can skip counter. We are working on making it even more applicable to other customers too. Is this the condition for you to go with "Hertz exclusively"?

I sensed that you may not be very familiar that this is possible today. It's probably also something we can improve.

I’m aware of gold membership and don’t want to deal with it, because it sounds scammy.

I’ll book Hertz through Priceline or another travel site solely based on price and end up in a situation where if being a gold member applied, I see no indication I could skip the counter anyway. Maybe that’s strictly a messaging area for improvement.

If your company was honestly trying to improve, you’d make everybody a lifetime member with their first rental purchase, not call it a membership at all, and make renting a car as easy as getting an Uber: through the phone, over the internet, silent, and almost zero people to slow the process.

Yeah it's basically a profile for you to log in and provide payment info etc. Just like your Uber login it's free. Maybe we can make it clearer.

I work for another rental car company and can assure you that the counter does not exist to upsell you. It is there as a convenience to customers that want to rent a car without a complete rental agreement in place (think travel agents, tours, third party discount sites, etc). Frequent renters have a much simpler experience akin to Uber via the loyalty programs and company apps.

You're lying to at least one of us. Of course the counter exists to upsell. That may not be its sole or even primary reason for existing, but since the business exists to upsell, by attempting it every single time, how could the counter not? Tell you what, I'll believe you just as soon as your company stops all upselling everywhere. You don't even have to say which company. I'll notice, I promise. I'll start holding my breath now.

This "it is there as a convenience" is also embarrassingly intellectually dishonest. How convenient is it if I can't do business at all without it? Way more convenient for me than you, I'll just go to your competition, which I do, and I'm not the only one.

The rental car industry needs a Southwest analog. One that still plays the patronage games with airports in order to actually be where the customers are, but cuts out industry standard BS practices that all the incumbents keep imposing on passengers simply because they can.

My rental car should be waiting for me with the rental car agent IN the driver's seat, AT THE CURBSIDE PICKUP LANE, where he or she then drives to the rental car center to drop him- or herself off and hand me the keys. You've already lost me when you make me ride some loud smelly dirty bumpy overloaded community rental car shuttle that adds 15 minutes minimum to my trip, especially when I get to now wait another hour in line behind your counter and am basically captive in a bad neighborhood if I don't like the terms of the deal because you changed them at the last minute.

BTW, ever been upsold by a NASTY agent, happy to lie to you about what you're giving up by saying no to a size upgrade or extra insurance, and turning derisive for the inevitable rest of the 15 minute encounter? I have, too many times, too many companies. A smart tablet or smartphone isn't going to make me feel bad or unsafe for not giving you extra money you didn't earn.

My message to the car rental industry as a whole: stop lying. You're not as good at it as you used to be.

Ha, lol. I just sling code, man. I was just trying to give you some insight into how things work.

You can't believe how bad car rental companies what to reduce reliance on counter. It's real. We want that to happen. But it gonna take some time. Upsell is just one of the reasons, but there's also fraud, car availability, etc. What holding the industry back isn't the profits, it's bad technology. No one is lying, it's just horrible execution.

Back when I used to travel for work, National's Emerald Club was amazing for this reason. You just go to the special lot for members, pick the car you want, and drive to the booth with no upsell.

Emerald Aisle: https://www.nationalcar.com/en/emerald-club/services/emerald...

Just sent you an email to the email in your profile!

Thanks for the tip.

First comment on the article answers this question:

“I think one reason is that for normal people, they make you go to the counter so that they can upsell you to a larger car with lots of extra insurance etc.

Frequent customers know what they want and are unlikely to be upsold, so they can sign up to Gold Club to avoid the upselling.

Repeat business customers are also more valuable than the occasional tourist, so the Gold Club members probably have real reservations for their car, while people who aren't in the Gold Club don't have real reservations, so the counter person does actually have to search and see if they have a car available to rent to you.”

I rent cars several times a year from several different companies (whatever is the cheapest) and I never experience upsells, let alone "high pressure timeshare tactics." Are you speaking from experience, or just assuming this is how car rental agencies operate?

Edit: they do ask about pre-buying gas and additional insurance, but a simple "no thanks" ends that part of the transaction immediately. Are those the upsells you are referring to?

I have had the same experience as you. I'm confused by the "high pressured sales tactics" talk, I have never experienced it.

Are they losing money though? They pay a minimum wage person or two, to upsell you: nicer car, insurance, gps, blah blah. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s a profit center for them

A few possible reasons of the top of my head:

* Not every renter has a US license or ID

* Want to add another driver

* The gate security clerk isn’t always an employee of the rental company (one exit, multiple companies)

* Travelers are tired/frustrated and would prefer to talk to a human to make sure it’s done right

* Not everyone arrives with a working smartphone and email or app, or perhaps they just don’t like or can’t use apps

* Flight cancelled/missed/delayed and just need to rent a car on the spot

This process is comically absurd compared to Turo. I used to rent out my car on Turo, and at some point I stopped meeting the renters completely. Just leave the car any time in the agreed-upon location, pick it up a week later at my convenience, same for the renters. The absurdity of standing in 30+ minute lines (my personal record was almost two hours at Hertz in Cancun), it feels like something from two centuries ago. Like, Blockbuster came alive and decided to resume competing with Netflix via VHS tapes.

I understand it gets complicated with a lot of customers in, say, the airport all at once, and I'll wait if I actually didn't make a reservation and they are getting the car ready, but the counter bottleneck is completely unnecessary.

Oh wow, last time I rented a car was in Miami in early 2021, the line stretched from outside their booth all the way around the concourse. I think it was almost 3 hours there-- and I HAD a reservation. I had forgotten about that...

The next time I used Turo also and it was awesome (last summer). It was a half mile from where we were staying, much cheaper, much less hassle. Would recommend also.

I learned (on HN) a few years ago that you can rent cars at car dealers. The pricing is moderately higher than at Hertz/etc., but you can choose the kind of vehicle you want, and it's guaranteed. I haven't done it in a couple years, and it's possible the supply chain crunch has affected this practice. But I found it to be much more enjoyable than renting from a traditional agency. It's especially helpful if there's a vehicle that you want to do an extended test drive of, so you can get a sense of how you like it after more than a few times around the block.

This obviously doesn't work at airports, but for road trips it's great.

Only at a relatively small number of dealerships/brands and you're getting a base model car from the service loaner fleet. It is really more intended for people who have been in accidents and their insurance is paying for the rental. The getting to pick the vehicle you want is meant to give you a like model car while yours is being glued back together.

It is becoming much more common for larger dealerships to just house an Enterprise or Budget rental desk inside the dealership which manages loaning out the fleet.

Rented a car today and had the same question while waiting in line for 3o mins. If getaround can let me just walk to a car, unlock it, and drive away surely the car rental companies can figure out how to streamline the entire experience too!

I assumed the reason for this was simply about incentivizing people to book directly, while penalizing people who rent through an agency (such as Priceline), since those agencies generally offer lower to much lower rates to you, plus Hertz then has to pay a nice commission to the agency, further destroying their margin.

Reason for my assumption: you are unable to add your hertz account to a reservation done through a third party, meaning those people always are forced to wait in the lines and use the counter.

In general, there are also fairly involved formal contracts involved when you rent a car. Quite a few years back, I naively decided to merge a couple of rentals (from the same company, Avis) and in spite of some attempted phone calls and chats it all ended up being a monumental hassle with threatening emails that my first rental hadn't been returned etc. No one knew how to handle.

Lol, this is _exactly_ what I did today at Avis: proposed to keep my first car for my second contract. Wish me luck when returning!

I try to update this post in a few days.

It didn't end up being a problem. But no one knew how to handle (this was 10+ years ago with sketchy communications outside of Vegas at the time). As I recall, this was back when a lot of Vegas parking was free and I decided it made more sense to just keep the car for a few days between outside Las Vegas trips.

Take a picture in the car lot of the car when you return it! Try to get an employee in frame too.

That's how I managed to avoid a no-return penalty with Hertz a few years ago, and now I always take that picture.

How do you decide which equally distant rental place to choose?

It’s a loyalty program. That’s all.

Price?

Most people in Hertz Gold are business travelers and aren't spending their own money. Price is not a concern as long as it doesn't exceed any reimbursement limits their employer may have.

They use the time filling in data to upsell you on all sorts of things

Seinfeld did a great bit on car rentals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T2GmGSNvaM

Maybe they are exploiting sunk cost fallacy to get more loyal customers

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