My wife and I take frequent road trips up to SF Bay area and/or the California Central Coast (to escape the horror of living in SoCal). Travel (incl. going to Europe every other year) is one of my big priorities in life, in addition to FIRE.
In any case, I drive an old beater Volvo that is extremely cheap and reliable to own. Also, my commute is fairly short, and I only go into the office two or three times a week for only part of the year (I'm an academic). The car is great as a daily driver, but I am not happy driving a 28 y.o. brick long distances, so we always rent.
Butt! I am so freaking sick of rental car agencies and all their ridiculous ripoff BS and horrible customer service! Last time, I rented from a nationwide chain, and reserved through Costco. Lakcadasical, piss-poor service, could not care less about anything. When they brought the key and the BS for me to sign, the amount was 92$ above what I reserved it for. Luckily, in the business world, I trust NO one and always have documentation. I showed them the e-mail on my phone, and they backed off a little, the second time overcharging me by only $27. "The system" would not let them give me a lower price. What a joke! The manager gave me a worthless verbal promise not to overcharge me when I returned the car. I told the manager to write down the price on his business card and initial it. I just wanted to get out of there (15+ minutes of my time wasted!)
Then, I returned it a week later and showed it to the returns dude (some sort of managment trainee), and he said "uh, ok, uh let's see". "Well, I was able to get it down to $$$$ [this time only ripping me off by $2!]. I protested again (more of my time wasted) and he finally got it down to a few cents lower than what I reserved for. Imagine, wasting that much of everyone's time in a pathetic attempt to rip me off by a couple bucks!!!
So sick of it all!! Too many stories. Rental car agencies are just about the worst!!! We rented with Dooley in Ireland for three weeks and they were great, and Alamo has been ok for the most part, but Hertz, Avis, Enterprise, Dollar have all caused me ridiculous headaches!
What are the alternatives? Zipcar? seems like an expensive pain. There is this other company that only rents Audis (which I have zero interest in-AND they die unexpectedly on the freeway and no one knows why!!!). What else?? Any ideas???
Thanks!