As an airline employee, I have done my fair share of travel and renting of cars, and my experience yesterday with Hertz was quite possibly the WORST combination of bad customer service and inconvenience I have EVER experienced in attempting to rent a car.

My family and I went to the location at 14th and Champa to pick-up a rental car so that they would be able to attend my wedding. When we arrived, well within operating hours, the doors were locked and there was a sign taped inside the door saying to call their other office on Welton and they would provide transportation for customers wishing to go collect a car. When we called the number on the door, the lady who answered was reluctant to provide transportation and said that we should find our own way up there instead. The lady then asked for our name and looked at our booking and proceeded to tell us that even though we had a confirmed reservation for a mid-sized SUV, that they just didn't have any mid-sized SUVs, or any SUV's at all for that matter, claiming that they didn't have to provide one, because it was a "specialty vehicle". The lady on the phone (knowing absolutely NOTHING about our family size, or situation, or plans for the week) then tried to tell me that we needed to take a sedan because she didn't think we really needed an SUV anyway. I explained to her that there were specific reasons we had chosen an SUV (namely transporting my family and many things to my wedding) and asked if she would assist us in finding another location that had one available. She insisted that there were absolutely no SUV's available in the entire city, at all, period. A moment later she decided that she actually did have a Nissan with a cracked windshield that she would give us, but that she wouldn't do anything further to help. When we told her that taking a damaged and potentially dangerous vehicle was not a feasible option, she claimed that it would be fine because we could just "pick it up and trade it at a different location that had any available SUV for us". We then asked how she expected us to trade the damaged car if there were absolutely no SUVs city-wide, she changed here story and said, there are hundreds of available cars at the airport, they will definitely have one. I then mentioned that I was headed to the airport later that evening and asked if we could change our rental to the airport location instead, since they would have our reserved vehicle, but she had no interest in assisting us with this either.

After wasting my time and energy talking to this wholly unhelpful HERTZ representative, I was happy to find that I was able to make an online booking for a comparable price through AVIS and we had our car and were on our way in under 10 min.

All-in-all my family and I stood on the sidewalk outside of this lousy rental car location for nearly 45 minutes on the phone trying desperately to get some sort of help from an agent who couldn't have cared less about anything, especially doing her job. In the end it was a huge frustration and a colossal waste of time.

Thanks HERTZ for ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

So glad we were able to take our business elsewhere.