to never book a car with the terrible HERTZ again

[Checkmate]

Booked a 7 seat hire car on the 28th June, for me, DH, 4DCs. My parents are holidaying with us and booked a smaller car on same day. For Perugia Airport in Italy, on 17th July. Gave credit card details to pay aprox £1,100.

Today, someone from my husbands work (who are organizing our flight) called Hertz to confirm our arrival time. They were told that the 7 seater wasn't available, and we had been informed of this.

We hadn't been informed of this! We'd have turned up on Saturday with 4 children of 7 and under, to find no way of traveling to our villa an hour a way!

I've phoned Hertz back, they admitted that I should have been told the car would be requested but to await a call to confirm it. I was not told this at the time. The woman today also said I should have been phoned back to be told that the 7 seater wasn't available within a few days of booking, that she could see on the system this hadn't been done, but that "it is a misunderstanding and not Hertz's fault". WTF? As far as I understood it, I had booked and paid.

She reluctantly put in another request for the car "on the system" but it was rejected. I have managed to get hold of the phone number for the Hertz branch in Perugia. It is continually engaged, or just not answered. I'll of course keep trying.

Just going online to see if another company has a 7 seater available. If it does we'll cancel my parents car with Hertz, as easier to have both with same company.

I will never book a car with Hertz again; aside from the actual chaos of the car not being available, the girl was surly and refused to put me through to a manager. She put the phone down on me at one point - and I was not swearing or ranting and raving at her; I don't do that. I phoned back and the second person was a bit more helpful; gave me the branch phone number at least. Again, said no to putting me through to a manager.

Instead of taking my DC to the park this afternoon, I'm fobbing them off with tv and spending the afternoon trying to find a large car at short notice. I am so upset.

OF course, IANBU to say I will never book a car with Hertz again, and to want to let the world know about it.... am I?

[kreecherlivesupstairs]

No. They really are pisspoor at customer service. We flew to Manchester just before new year for a wedding. I made the reservation online and in the little box about what time to collect it I ticked 8-830. My thinking was it would take half an hour to get bags etc and plane was landing at 7.30. We did get there at the predicted time and left in our car at 10. I know that living in Switzerland has made me much more punctual but is was piss poor. DD was being a bridesmaid and she missed a lot of the rehearsal. Their excuse was snow.

[Checkmate]

Wish I knew that before; hopefully some others will know it now, if they click on this thread.

[Checkmate]

I'm ready to cry now. No one has a 7 seater for us. (They all go on to suggest a 9 seater, and then don't have one of those either.) Bugger. I don't know what we're going to do

[scatteredbraincells]

Hertz are crap, I've never booked with them and never will, purely because of reviews I've read. They're also very unreliable when it comes to carseats, and have been known to send you to storage rooms with luggage and screaming children in tow for you to pick carseats from a big pile of dirty, sometimes broken carseats (straps missing etc) and when you finally manage to get some half decent ones you have to walk back to your car with all your stuff, AND the carseats and install them. Children love the process especially. It's shocking that they actually charge for carseats!!!!

I'd cancel it if I was you, there's still time to find more reliable people.

[scatteredbraincells]

may I ask your dates/times? I organise trips as a secondary business for some extra cash so I might be able to help you out, I know people.

[scatteredbraincells]

btw, not trying to make a customer out of you, just to be clear, only an MNer helping out another MNer

[Fimbo]

I know its not ideal but as you are now desperate, could you divide the children between yourselves and your parents in the 2 cars?

[Checkmate]

scatteredbraincells, thank you.

Its for around midday on this sat 17th, for 2 weeks, until mid afternoon on 31st.

Don't need car seats as we can bring them in the flight with us.

I've just phoned Maggiore as it looked online like they had something, but the local guy said "no 7 seaters left in ALL Italy" Oh dear... you don't have a magic wand do you? If not then I am not confident...

I could put my email address and then ask mnet to delete the post to get in touch (Or use CAT; I've never don't this, not quite sure how)

[Checkmate]

Fimbo- Problem, is my parents are going off to do their own thing some of the time (overnight trips to Rome and Florence). So when they do that we won't be able to go out with all the DC. Also, plan is to do different things in the daytimes than my parents.

I guess the ultimate thing will be needing to hire 3 cars; one for my parents and the other 2 for my and DH to drive. Problem then - I only have an auto license and I have a feeling getting an auto on short notice will be difficult too. I'm not confident driving on the wrong side, but I guess I could cope if I had to . We'll then be having to find 2 parking spaces wherever we go etc...

[scatteredbraincells]

click on this

and on this

but do it NOW, I'm also trying to get hold of a particular person in Avis, were you gonna spend this much? Let me know if any of these two will do or I'll keep trying

[scatteredbraincells]

also, you have toooooooo many kids. 4 under 7s, duuuude. Kudos to you for taking a holiday at all...

[scatteredbraincells]

don't know how CAT works either, I'll happily email you if you need me to, unless of course I can help you from here

[Checkmate]

£3590! Oh my goodness! We could buy a car for that! More than 3 times the price we booked at originally, and more expensive than the villa!

Thanks so much for finding something though... I'm going to have to check with DH before booking though; at that price he might make me go through the terror of us each having a smaller car to drive

I've sent an email to Hertz customer service but can't find a proper person to email at all, so I'll probably just be ignored.

The large company DH works for are horrified and saying they'll boycott Hertz forever because of this, so at least I'll have lost them some business.

BTW - 7 and under, not under 7... the eldest is almost 8. Does that make it any better or do you still think we're nuts?!

[Checkmate]

Oh both those links were the same; Elephant. Is that right?

[scatteredbraincells]

nope, still nuts. unless you have two sets of twins one of which was an accidental pregnancy, nuts in my book [tongue in cheek emoticon]

yeah, I though it was crazy price, gimme some time...

[Fimbo]

here but in Perguia itself not the airport, perhaps your parents could drive one of you there?

[Fimbo]

Right link is not working properly - you will need to put in the details yourself but Perguia rather than the airport, it brings up a 9 seater for roughly £2200

[Checkmate]

Hmmmm, just checked Avis, and they say they've got something for 2,684. It says "subject to confirmation" though, and I'd like to know if they've actually got it before I commit. Maggiore looked like they had something, but when I phoned they didn't. If that's what your phone call is about then I will be forever grateful...

[scatteredbraincells]

yes, different cars.

I spoke with the girl I know at Avis, she has a couple of people carriers left that they keep for last minute bookings from agents but it starts at 2,800!!!!! Maybe I could transfer to you my discount which would bring it down by a couple of hundrend.

Sorry this is not working out, I honestly hoped I could do better

Get everything you can out of Hertz, one of my customers once arrived at the airport to find out that Europcar had no idea about him picking up a car. But he had his paperwork and as they didn't have a car similar to the one he requested they found him a car from a different company and paid the difference, they admitted it was their fault. Do you have a receipt, you've paid a deposit?I would trust Hertz to do anything so honourable, but see what you're entitled to, they shouldn't get away with it

[ShadeofViolet]

Hertz are awful - we rented a car from them and paid extra for a booster seat and car seat. They tried to palm us off with a booster seat that didnt have a cover, so was just hard plastic (it should have had a velour cover) and a carseat that had a big chunk of polystyrene missing from the top!

[scatteredbraincells]

"wouldn't trust"

[scatteredbraincells]

gotta go, I'm in greece atm and it's getting late, will check on this first thing in the morning, might be able to get hold of more contacts as well. Speak to your DH about prices and have faith. Keep me posted x

[Checkmate]

Fimbo I put the details in, but it comes up as nothing available, for any of the Perugia locations. I'm obviously doing something wrong; I'm in such a tizz now.

scattered... normally I would be bigging up the joys of a large family, but days like this I know it makes sense to have just had 3!

[whomovedmychocolate]

Actually it's not just HERTZ (although they do seem to take the bit in their T&Cs about not guaranteeing any vehicle's availability very seriously). The amount of hire cars available in Europe has plummeting in the last few years.

May I make a suggestion? Could you hire a small car and one of you drive it to another hire place and pick up a bigger one while everyone else sits at the airport?

[Checkmate]

Thanks so much Scattered. Interesting to hear that Avis may have something..

DH ants me to cost up a 5 seat family car and a small car, one of which needs to be auto. He's pointed out we'll only need the bigger of these for the first few days, as mum and dad will be around then. Then pick up the smaller car once they go on their trips.

We'll compare that with the potential Avis price and see...

Thanks Fimbo too, and for the sympathy everyone.

Hertz are crap.