Positives- They answered the phone and were willing to talk to me the next day when I called to complain. They weren't willing to help me in any way, but they were willing to talk and explain the situation.
Negatives- It's a long story, but the one sentence summary is I never even got to rent my car and had to take a $100 cab to Camden. I would not recommend using Hertz. I was scheduled to arrive just after 6 on a Cape Air flight. I indicated in the reservation that I'd be there at 6, because I've never before encountered a situation where it was crucially important to be right on the nose in that department. However, I also didn't include my flight info in the reservation. That part is my fault and apparently if I had done that, this could have been avoided. Still, I'm pissed about how everything transpired. The flight was late and landed at 7. I get off the plane and immediately see that the Hertz desk is closed. I check online and see that they close at 6. That's a problem. I check with the Cape Air desk--they say that a different Cape Air employee probably has the keys. When there's an after-hours pickup, that's how it's handled. Great. I check with that person--nope, sorry, no keys were left with her today. Oof. I try calling Hertz's national 1-800 number to get help. That's 10 minutes I'd rather have spent doing anything else. Totally worthless. I leave an angry note on the Hertz desk asking them to call me the next day and get a cab. (As an aside, Cape Air helped me get that cab, and they were really helpful about it. I really appreciated that.) It cost $100 to get to my destination, Camden, plus I no longer had a car to use to get around Camden during my stay. I didn't get a call from Hertz in the morning, of course, so I waited until the afternoon and called them. They did acknowledge they saw the note and apologized for not calling back. They said that because I didn't include my flight info (my fault, I acknowledge) in the reservation and had scheduled it for a time when they were open, they didn't leave the keys with the Cape Air people because they "thought it was an in-town reservation." First of all, how many reservations from non-Cape Air passengers do they get? I doubt it's very many. More importantly though, I had said I'd be there at 6 in the reservation, and they close at 6. They said if I had indicated I'd be there at 7, the reservation would have told me they'd be closed and would have required me to input flight info. That makes sense, but why doesn't the reservation require that if you say you'll be there literally at the minute they close? That's more of a Hertz corporate complaint than a complaint about this location, but still. What a dumb system. The reservation didn't even have the location's hours on it. How hard would it have been for them to print a contract and leave the keys with Cape Air, assuming I'd be on that late flight? Probably not very hard, and if I had no-showed (which could happen whether I'm an in-town rental or I'm on Cape Air and missed my flight), I'm sure they could have just canceled the contract. Instead they did nothing, and I was left holding the bag.
