When I booked our trip to Las Vegas last year, I knew we would need a rental car. So I went on rentalcars.com and booked it. I went through Hertz. I have never had a problem with the local Hertz or anywhere else that I have rented from them. I figured since it was the cheapest and I have a past with them it would be a piece of cake. Nope.
When we got off the plane and went to get our car, it was nothing but hell. HELL! When we booked our car several months in advance we got a great deal! All the deals were around the same prices with the other companies at the airport, but I went with Hertz and got a great deal! For 1 week it was going to cost us around $150. WELL.. when I looked closer to the time of our trip to see if I could get even a better deal, because it's sometimes beneficial to look closer to the date and change your booking. The prices were sky high and it was unbelievable. The lowest price was over $800 for the week. The average cost of the cars were originally around $150 - $300 depending on the car service company. When we went to the Hertz counter at the airport, we were greeted rudely by the staff.
I gave them my itinerary for my car, my receipt of booking and they were horrible! It's not my fault that my car was booked in advance and your fee went from $150 to $900 because of NASCAR coming to town and you raising your pricing. They did everything they could to not rent us this car. At the time I did not have a credit card, I didn't want one, so you're going to try to punish me by telling me that I can't rent with a debit card finally after going to talk among yourselves. I filed a complaint but nothing was ever done. They gave me a promo code to save on an upgrade at another time. I'm not renting from your company again! I'm so glad that I had to pay at the counter and not already pre-paid that ridiculous company.
I ended up having to go to Alamo. They wanted over $1100 for a week! After explaining to the manager there, they were able to wave the drop of fee (which apparently was included in the $150 from Hertz because they knew where I was dropping it off on the booking) and discount the price a little so I was paying just around $400 for the week. It is still extremely higher than the Hertz original price, but it was better than over $1100.
We now have a credit card and it makes it much easier to rent a car. Those places are so much nicer when you have a credit card. Wonder why? Anyways we now know this...
Have a credit card, even if it's one that you use for just this reason.
Don't rent from Hertz.
Always double check your booking and check for a better price. Call the company if necessary to verify booking.
Make sure you actually need the car! We spent 4 days in Vegas and walked everywhere or took an Uber. Vegas is not the city you want to be driving in, I don't care what kind of bad traffic you're used to. I could have saved even more if I would have just rented the car the last day we were there to go into Arizona to visit.
Oh and I had called Hertz several times before our trip to verify booking and payment options! So this was highly ridiculous. I wanted to leave Vegas as soon as we got there. It was a HORRIBLE experience.
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