Enterprise Car Rental (via Hotwire)

Wow, I am sorry that it has been so long since my last post.  2012 has been an extremely busy year so far, and I haven't had a chance to update the blog.  I will make a better effort to keep posts coming.

If you have been reading my blog, you know that it was first inspired by a horrible experience with Hotwire.com.  I did a follow up blog about them making an effort to correct the situation, and they really won my business back.  This post is about my experience with Enterprise Car Rental which I booked through Hotwire.com.

Booking with Hotwire.com was easy and by far the best deal that I could find for a weekend rental for a recent road trip I took with some buddies.  I found several options and decided to pay a little extra to go with a bigger car so that we wouldn't be cramped on the trip.

When I arrived at Enterprise to pick the car up, there were a few people waiting for cars, phones ringing like crazy, and one guy behind the desk trying to run around and help people.  Eventually more employees showed up and began to help.  Both employees were very friendly initially, and one offered to show us our car options while we were waiting.

That is where the problem happened, he gave us two options; a Chevy Aveo (TINY) and a FIAT 500 (TINIER).  Being that I had paid more to reserve a bigger car, I let them know that neither of these were in the class that I had booked.  The agent told me that these were the only cars available and they were my only choices.

I pulled up my email confirmation from Hotwire.com, that clearly showed I had booked a car from a higher class.  Rather than offering to find a solution himself, he said I would have to take the problem up with Hotwire....  In my opinion, Hotwire had nothing to do with it at that point.  It was clear that Enterprise was just trying to put me into something that they had available on the lot.

When I voiced my concern and mentioned that I had specifically paid more for the larger vehicle, he offered to put me into a Dodge Charger, but wanted to charge me an additional $20 a day.  I didn't feel like it should be my responsibility to pay for their lack of cars, so I asked him to find a car on another lot.

Ultimately, they were able to find another car for us, but only because I insisted.  The hassle of finding something got us on the road close to an hour after our planned departure, which is frustrating.  The employee that drove us to our car was really great and helpful and mostly made up for the inconvenience. 

At the end of the day, I would definitely use Hotwire.com again, but I would be very reluctant to use Enterprise again.  It seemed very dishonest to me that they tried to put us into a smaller car despite the fact that I had a confirmation very clearly showing the class of car I had paid for.  If I hadn't stood my ground, they would have put me into an inferior car for the price of a superior car.