In the past few years I’ve had to rent more than my fair share of rental cars. I’ve rented from Hertz, Enterprise, Budget, Dollar, and a handful of smaller local companies. Some of those were better than others, but rarely did I find a reason to try to go back to the same rental company the next time. In fact after joining Hertz’s loyalty program hoping that I could establish some kind of regular purchase/reward deal with them I found myself constantly playing middle man between what Hertz corporate would tell me, and the privately owned Hertz Local Edition shops that acted like Hertz corporate was screwing them and it was my fault. Combined with them frequently not even having cars available I gave up.
I bitched about this on twitter and someone suggested I try out National and holy crap, I can’t believe I never tried them before. I’m seriously kicking myself for the last 2 years of rentals that weren’t with them. As a member of their Emerald Club (free sign up online) you get to choose any car on the lot and all at the same price. Yeah, a minivan costs the same as a compact, a cost which is generally cheaper than what you’d get a piece of crap car from any other place. For instance, I have a Toyota Prius for a week right now, it’s costing me $170. Last time I rented from them I had a Nissan Altima for a weekend, that was under $100. And seriously, they have rad cars, they aren’t the super cheep-o model you’ve never heard of, I’ve got a Prius right now for crying out loud.
Anyway, literally this is the first time I’ve ever been amped about renting a car so I thought I’m pass that on here.
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Been interesting to see how the car rental co’s behave as far as customer service and competition in recent years.
Last year Enterprise acquired the company that owns both National and Alamo rent-a-car. I’ve had really good experiences with Enterprise (never rent at the airport, only at neighborhood locations) and it seems that the collective momentum behind these three little guys has really but the big guys (Hertz, Avis, Budget) to shame. Unless you’ve got that Hertz super-duper gold advantage card, I spose.
Hey, let’s start a rent-a-car splog!
So glad you had a great experience! I used to run e-commerce at National. It always warms my heart to hear about good experiences
I like the idea of picking any car off the lot, but when I went to look at National’s prices, they’re pretty shitty. Rudy and I are renting cars by the month, our current Hertz car (Mustang) is $600/mo, so the next car we’re renting is from Enterprise which will be $500/mo. Most rental dealerships give you a free upgrade anyways, hence why we got the Mustang last month when we asked for an economy car. Hell, gas prices are so bad these days that NO ONE wants to rent SUVs/minivans, so they’re DYING to rent those!
PS: Forgot to say that a National car rental for one month is $750. $250 more than Enterprise… sucky.
I always rent from National, except LAX where I get better deals with Fox Rental. Don’t forget to sign up for their deals newsletter – every week there are great coupons to use.
i also found if you make the reservation at the last minute you can save a pile of money
My company lists National as our preferred rental agency. I have never had such good service from a car rental company. With one exception out of 12 (or 13) rentals since August, they’ve been awesome. If they’re out of the car class I want, they’ll bump me (at no cost) to more expensive cars. Also, the Emerald Aisle service gets me out of the airport while other agencies have people still standing at the counters.