I recently got back from a two-week vacation in Italy. In two cities, Bari and Florence, I reserved a rental car so that I could see the sights on my own terms, and on both occasions, I regretted making a reservation at all. I won’t name the company.
Budget. It was Budget.
This company, in my experience, could not care less about their customers. They’re in a field where there’s little competition, with four companies dominating the industry.
-Enterprise owns Alamo, National, and Enterprise
-Hertz owns Advantage and Hertz
-Avis owns my archenemy Budget and Avis
-Dollar Thrifty owns, you guessed it, Dollar and Thrifty
The check-in process took hours. The up-selling is relentless. The staff hates their jobs. The reservations are taken, but not held. Here’s a slice of what happened at the Budget in Bari.
We show up. To set the stage, Budget is the only car rental company in the area. There are 15 people yelling in the lobby of the store when we open the front door. When we get to the front desk we realize why. They’re out of cars despite taking reservations. They have no clue when they’re getting any. It could be days. It’s been 15 days as of today – still haven’t heard from them.
In an attempt to make me feel better, the staff member tells me it’s been like this for 10 days. This doesn’t, in fact, make me feel better. For some reason, no one has yet thought to inform people ahead of time that they’re out of cars. They just go through this insanity every day.
An hour goes by. At 1 PM, the manager tells everyone to leave as he and the other guy who runs the Budget go on break for two hours from 1 PM to 3 PM, as you do. The angry mob refuses to leave. The two guys turn off the lights and leave anyways.
And by the way, this has been going on since the 90s. We have the proof!
Businesses like this don’t stay in business. No one has yet dominated the Airbnb for rental cars market, but I have little doubt that someone will. I can’t wait for that.