Friday, July 20, 2012

Bad Start on First Day

Pouring rain when I woke up, raining trying to get a cab to the rental car place. Arrive to about 10 people in the rental car place which is unusual. They are all angry. No cars. They've all been there longer than I have and are waiting for someone to return a car. The lone employee is copping an attitude (I think) of "I can't do anything about this." Meanwhile, there's no manager in sight.

This is not the first time this has happened to me in this location -- Dollar is always the cheapest, by far, but what good is it if they don't have a car? There's a Budget location on this block so I call their 800-number, and much to my surprise they have a car, and I make a reservation on the spot. I was so surprised to get a car that I wasn't ready when she started to give me my confirmation number so I pull the first piece of paper I touched in my purse which turned out to be the envelope my parking pass is in.

I write down the number and schlep to Budget, in the rain, with all my stuff for an 11-day trip. I hand the Budget clerk the envelope which my eyes were trained on... finally I could take no more and asked him for the envelope back. I was afraid of leaving it there or having him rip it in two and throw it away.

The good news is I got a car, the kind I wanted. The only thing, according to the Budget clerk, that was being returned was sub-compacts. That might have been acceptable for a one-day trip, but not for this trip. The bad news is that the rental is $300 more, and I am thinking of asking Dollar to pay the difference.

Well, a girl can dream. I am definitely complaining and definitely not going back to that location.

So I got a nice car and hit the road, heavy rain the whole way... well, it was either heavy rain or heavy misting rain which is almost worse as this mist sprays off the big trucks and makes visibility really poor.

Arrive at the hotel...Comfort Inn... around 7 pm. Have just relaxed, watched tv, read email, did a few work things.

Here is the view out my window and various views of my room... definitely outdated and not fancy, but very clean. Pleasant young woman when I checked in.


the view from my window


my queen size bed


from the bed to the door, with the odd banquet chair

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2 comments:

  1. Mary McJuly 21, 2012 at 12:06 AM

    I was thinking of your car rental experience when I picked up the minivan for our trip today. I told the guy about there being no car for you and he said "oh that happened to us last week". I heard the only excuse I've ever heard that is plausible and acceptable. Because of the bad storm we had, there were many many cars being returned to rental car locations with damage (including flat tires) that prevented them from being rentable. That's something I never thought of, but if a big tree limb comes down on your rental car or debris in the road does damage, or water does damage, it can dramatically reduce the inventory in an unexpected way. Hope the rest of your trip is an improvement.

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  2. FranJuly 21, 2012 at 1:07 PM

    Here's where a good customer service policy could have eased the pain with a plausible explanation (per Mary's rental guy) or a backup plan, eg, provide customers w/tels of other rental office numbers or secure cars from other companies. But the important thing is you have the car you wanted are safe and comfy at the Comfort Inn. Isn't there a saying if it rains in days prior to Oshkosh start, you'll have sunny skies the rest of the show. Or did I make that up?

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