[papercruncher]

I have never, ever, had a good experience at a Hertz (or most of the other majors to begin with). The process of renting a car is one dark pattern after the other, from the website, to the real-life rental location, even the cars themselves. Every experience was at best frustrating, typically rage inducing. I won't miss them.

[woutr_be]

The last time I rented a car, I pre-paid everything online, so I was hoping to just pick up the car after a long flight. However at the airport, the new bill the presented me was 10 times higher because they tried to get me to another car (claiming they’ll give a discount), they don’t present you with the no insurance option. I had to explicitly ask them to just give me the car I had paid for.

[Fronzie]

Or they make a nice offer for an upgrade, which I decline. Then it turns out that the smaller car was not available, so they had to give the upgrade anyway.

And somehow they still looked at me as if I played them..

[donjoe]

I always rent through some sort of AAA (automobile club). Almost each country does have a similar organization.

I do mostly rent my cars through ADAC (German AAA) which usually comes with unlimited miles, no excess insurance(s), young driver benefits, free additional driver, ... and a hotline which just 'works':

Hertz once charged a pretty extra on a prepaid rental. One call to ADAC complaining about the extra charge and I had my money back a week later.

[PhantomGremlin]

The process of renting a car is one dark pattern after the other

I also despise dark patterns that car rental involves. Fortunately, two things make it easy to rent a car from Hertz (or probably any other major):

1) work for a company that has a corporate rental agreement with Hertz. All the bullshit about collision damage waivers, liability insurance, etc. just goes away.

2) sign up for their "rewards" program (the name differs by company). This puts all your important info into their computers. That way they aren't constantly re-entering info from your drivers license, etc.

3) There is a third option. You should rent trucks instead! :)

Just kidding about trucks being a real alternative. But whenever I rent from U-Haul it's absurdly pleasant, compared to renting cars as an individual. For example, the collision damage waiver for a car rental can be $30 a day or more. The same thing was only $10 on my most recent U-Haul rental.

[icelancer]

That's odd. I have good experiences with them. Walk into the place, talk to no one, get in a car, drive to the window, take off.

[chrisseaton]

Whenever I try to rent a car from somewhere like Hertz I'm presented with a baffling array of choices for waivers and insurance. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to buy and how the insurance works.

They want me to pick and sign right there under pressure and with no time to read the agreement. I'm almost always left with no real understanding of what happens if I have a crash and pretty worried that I may be liable for more than I'm worth.

It's comical they way they wave those barely readable sheets of paper around randomly circling things and putting crosses in places.

[icelancer]

Yeah, you gotta be a Gold member (or equivalent at other places) to get around this BS and do it all online / before you show up. I agree that the stock experience is miserable. Fortunately through AMEX it's free, same with Delta if you're any sort of status, etc etc. It's a method of gatekeeping.

[tjansen]

Same here. When you are a Gold member, you they can't even try to upsell you anything. You just show your license at the exit and then drive away.

[dgudkov]

>I won't miss them.

I will. I don't have a car, but sometimes I need it so I typically go to Avis. I had very good experience with Avis almost always. Nice clean cars, friendly personnel, sufficiently convenient website. I frequently get free upgrades to premium or bigger cars.

ZipCar, another car-sharing service I sometimes use is horrible. Dirty cars, annoying stupid website, refuel credit cards almost never work, so I have to use my own and submit refunds.

PS. I know, ZipCar belongs to Avis.

[mister_hn]

I have always had good experiences, besides the fact that on the website they show a model of a car and you get a different one (but of the same segment)

[rainyMammoth]

All car renters are full of dark patterns but in my experience Hertz was the best one amongst them.

After a while you realize how it works: Use some CDP code to rent for cheap on their website and refuse all the addons that are pushed onto you at pick up (where they are trained to scare you). That clears 99% of the dark patterns

[cglace]

Working in this industry I can tell you that it can be in your interest to buy either damage waivers or supplemental insurance. Especially when you are renting larger vehicles. People often don’t realize how much it costs to repair a panel truck. At the very least review your insurance policy to make sure it covers non owned autos. It really sucks when a customer finds out after the fact that their insurance is not going to cover their accident.

[cmckn]

Many (most?) credit cards have rental car coverage, it saved me a ~thousand dollars when a bird shattered a windshield. I always make sure the card I rent with has it.

[cglace]

I’ve seen customers get denied by their auto insurance and 2 credit cards. Just because a credit card provides coverages it doesn’t mean it covers everything. Insurance is complicated and you should never assume you are covered.

[cmckn]

For sure. In general, if it isn't your fault, it will be covered. If it's your fault, almost any policy will fight to not pay. Insurance sucks.

[danielfoster]

This is true, but often this only covers physical damage to the car only, not anything you hit. Claims for loss of use of the rental car while it's being repaired often aren't covered, either.

[gibolt]

I hated car rental companies every time I had to use them, even if it was being charged to a company I was visiting.

That changed after I became 26. Tons of extra fees and requirements are tossed on younger drivers which turned out to be most of the pain I had with them. Just aging made the rental process so much nicer

[dazc]

A manager of a competing company told me that Hertz managers have a monthly damages target. I have no trouble believing this.