7/17/2007

I Rant Because I Care: Rental Car Companies

This weekend, MD and I will be attending the wedding of our friend MJP, who will be marrying DB, her fella of many years. Besides being a pretty great guy, DB also happens to have been one of my students the first time I was a graduate teaching assistant, and the only student I've ever failed. (Oh how we laugh about it now!) Anyhow, MD and I need a way to get down to western Howard County, Maryland. Both of us are loathe to drive in or out of New York City, and are looking to keep the transportation costs low. So we thought we'd take the bus down to Baltimore on Saturday, and from there rent a car and drive the 30 miles or so to the farm where the wedding will be held. Sounded easy enough. So today when I finally got around to telephoning rental car places to secure a vehicle, I hit a stumbling block of sorts. HT: I'd like to rent a car for Saturday. I need to return it Sunday. Rental Car Man (RCM): We're not open on Sundays. HT: I can't drop it off? RCM: Nope. You'll have to drop it off on Monday. HT: I sort of need to ... um ... i can't drop it off on Monday. I need to leave Baltimore on Sunday. Um... RCM: Well maybe we can help you. Do you have a major credit card and full auto insurance coverage? HT: Excuse me? RCM: Credit card and full auto insurance coverage? HT: I have a credit card. And ... uh ... if I had full auto insurance coverage, I'd probably also have a car, no? I don't understand. RCM: Well then we can't help you. First of all, I don't understand how you can be a rental car agency and close on Sundays. Apparently this is standard practice for rental car agencies (or their branches) that aren't located at airports. How the hell do you return a car if you need to leave on a Sunday? Is this some sort of national law? No car drop offs on the Lord's day? Secondly, .... yeah. I can't even rant properly. I can't believe Enterprise Rent-a- Car has rendered me speechless. Because it's insanely expensive to rent a car in the New York metro area (which includes Newark), MD and I are resorting to this cockamamie plan: we're taking the bus down to Philly, and renting a car from there. No joke. At least we'll be able to hit a Sonic on the way down now. Gotta get me some Frito Pie Burrito!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

i once had to rent a car to travel from a small town to the nearest regional airport so i could rent another car that could be dropped off several hundred miles away. or something. my memory is hazy from the unprocessed rage.

and amtrak is so damn expensive.

hey, i should be so lucky to befriend one day someone who's flunked one of my classes. good for you!

(and thanks for linking to me. i'm a-blush.)

michael cambre said...

ht, the enterprise bastards in greenpoint are also not open on sundays and get this only open 9 am to 12 pm on saturday?? wtf? i wanted a van and they said if i got it i'd also have to keep it til monday and of course pay for the extra day. i didnt wanna get all seinfeld on them so after saying that it was a minimum 2 day rental if you get it on saturday they relented and allowed me to get it at 9 and have it back by noon on the same day. way overpriced as well. whatever happened to 29.95 in the city or something like that...