I spent ~10 years in the rental car business (although the very very high end of it.) Let me say, it's a weird business with LOTS of quirks.
Here's one: One of the biggest frustrations people have is that it seems impossible to actually get the car you reserved. Seinfeld even has a whole schtick about this - why is it called a "reservation" if it's not actually....a reservation?
Reservations never work because the rental car companies don't enforce them. You can book any car with any rental company and cancel up until the minute of the rental or just not show up and there's no penalty. (Everyone forgets this part.)
If a rental car company actually treated reservations like reservations, then they'd hold your Toyota Camry for you and not give it to someone else. But then when you decide not to show up for your rental, the rental company would be stuck because they planned for you to show up and you didn't.
So they have two choices: Either assume there's only an X% chance you're going to show up and use that to roughly plan fleet availability for that given day (the current state of affairs which results in your not getting a car you reserved when X+10% of people show up that day instead of X%), or start penalizing people for not showing up so they can actually honor reservations.
And why don't they do that? Good 'ol competition. Everyone is afraid to start enforcing reservations because if Hertz does but Enterprise doesn't, people are going to book with Enterprise ("Book w/ us and never pay a penalty when your plans change!").
You will notice that they are tip-toeing into this -- lots of companies now offer discounts for pre-paid (non-refundable) reservations, but the no-penalty-for-no-shows-pay-at-the-counter option is still there. And until it vanishes, the reservation issue will still be there.
And what is the reason for every agent seemingly needing to rewrite the computer operating system in assembly for each new customer that approaches the kiosk? Seriously why does it take 30+ min to gather someone's basic information, sign a few forms and hand them the keys?
I feel like this too, but only when other people are at the counter.
When I’m at the counter the whole thing never seems to take more than a few minutes. It’s always quick, and smooth, and I’m out of there, seemingly, in no time at all.
I desperately want to know what other people are saying or doing at the rental car counter.
Same thing at drive up ATMs. it feels like people are applying for a mortgage or opening retirement accounts when I'm behind them waiting. And... I know it's an exaggeration, but often I will time the person or people in front of me. Someone taking up to 1 minute - I don't generally mind (unless theres 3 people ahead of me). However, I've often sat behind someone who takes 3-4 minutes, and I can not figure out what the hell they're doing.
That said, I think I've only used an ATM 3x in the past year, so this may mostly be a thing of the past now.
I have been, in the past, that annoying person taking up lots of time at the ATM. Here's what I was doing: Depositing lots of checks (up to a dozen at once), with an ATM that in theory supported depositing a whole stack at once but in practice spat them back most of the time if you put in more than one. Oh, and you have to key in the value of each check, and navigate menu options after each individual check deposit.
I was very damn efficient considering how much I was doing, but it still took a decent amount of time.
As a non-American, the very idea of having to drive somewhere to physically deposit pieces of paper to transfer money around sounds absurd to the point of hilarity.
Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money?
In Poland, I've seen a real-life check only once in my whole adult life (past ~20 years). Any amount, literally from $1 to $10M+ is being sent by a wire transfer, and wire transfers cost $0-$0.25 flat fee, arriving within the same working day, or instant.
This is how it has worked for the past 20 years, and the more recent innovation is having a similar system working all across Europe, and instant transfers within the same country.
Depending on a bank's security policy, the only difference between amounts is that some banks won't allow you to send wires above a certain amount from mobile, and with some banks you have to appear in person for wires above say $50k.
> Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money?
In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30. Also some banks have limitations allowing you to do transfers only to accounts where the name matches.
While many major banks have an online transfer system (eg, Zelle), this is far from being universally supported (my bank is not a member) and many people don't have it setup. Also the transfer limits might be low.
Other options like Venmo or Cash require both sides of the transaction to have an account. They also don't work well outside of friend-to-friend interactions.
My understanding is the US is due to replace the current clearing house system with one up to modern standards, but we'll see how that goes.
> often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30
I get there probably isn't a single answer to this, BUT WHY? The US is a mature, skilled economy with a competitive B2C market, why does it still lag behind even comparable countries in terms of consumer financial infrastructure?
In US even the idea what there are could be some nation-wide (ie federal) registry of it's own citizen could get you pitch-forked. US still doesn't have a national-wide internal ID, and for the thing what essentially replaced it in function - driver's ID, every state has it's own format and idea what should be in it. It is not uncommon to hear what for something what requires ID (like buying alcohol or entering a nightclub) the people out of state would be barred from doing so because the clerk doesn't recognize the driver's ID of some other state and thinks it is a fraudulent one.
Most European countries have it easy, compared to the US, having a single law across the country and one citizens registry, or at least something much closer to it than the US.
Add to this a whole "embarrassed millionaire" mentality and a total unwillingness even to acknowledge the need for a change.
For the last one see any thread on Reddit where sane^W any non-American asks why US shops can't write the final price on the tag already.
"Sure but now everyone can track me down with my account ID! [Which is of course in the number of The Devil!11]" - the guy who has SSN.
I wasn't clear in my previous post, but statewide ID isn't needed for the consumers, of course, but behind the curtains this is still much a bank to bank wire transfer, just using a different protocols. One of the attack vectors is making an account, filling it with money (eg stolen from the other accounts) following with the cash out and begone in the wind. With the near instant money transfers it would means it could be done VERY fast and nobody (except criminals) would be happy if that could be done easily. Having an account tied to your nation-wide ID means you can do it only once and then you have painted a target on your back by yourself.
Of course there are SSN, KYC and other things, but aside from FBI's Most Wanted (joke) there is amusingly small list of things one US state entity can know about entity of other US state.
It is also always helpful to remember to treat US not as a country but as an association of countries under a single flag and currency. That way it would be much easier to answer multiple "WHY in America...." questions.
> It is also always helpful to remember to treat US not as a country but as an association of countries under a single flag and currency.
But is this materially any different to other federations, like Australia, Germany, and Canada (who’s provinces generally have significantly more autonomy than US states)?
> US still doesn't have a national-wide internal ID, and for the thing what essentially replaced it in function - driver's ID, every state has it's own format and idea what should be in it.
One of the nation-wide IDs actively in use is the tuple (state, driver_license_number).
Each identifier identifies a person. A person may have multiple identifiers. I have a non-US nationally-unique drivers license ID and a passport number.
This is the disconnect. There are only a couple of national banks, and they are all crappy in their own important ways. This was largely the same in the UK until Mon{z,d}o came along and banks had to treat user experience as a source of competitive advantage seemingly overnight.
The Faster Payments Service, which has allowed transfers between accounts of any UK bank which usually happen within minutes has existed since 2008. And it is free to use for non-business account holders throughout the entire market.
Paym, which allows transfers using mobile numbers is available with most high-street banks, but notably, not the fintech banks has been available since 2014. So arguably the fintech banks are behind the curve here, likely to try and drive some sort of network effect to increase friction of transferring money to customers of other banks.
Were the existing banks processes, apps & websites janky before the likes of Monzo came about? Sure, to varying extents. But the actual method of making transfers between accounts hasn't been influenced at all by the new banks, they're all using the existing structures that everybody was using before.
> In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out. It also takes several days to process, and sometimes has fees of $25-30. Also some banks have limitations allowing you to do transfers only to accounts where the name matches.
Wow. Here in Russia you only need a phone number, and when you enter it all the banks that recipient uses are automatically shown to you when you, it takes about 5 second and is completely free.
It's not "completely free". If you transfer more than 100 000 roubles/month (~ $1360) then it costs 0.5% of the amount. There are also limits of about several hundreds of roubles per month.
If the recipient wants to withdraw the cash in less than 30 days after receiving the payment, the bank may request documents that prove compliance with anti-laundering regulations. If you fail to provide such written documents then the bank will charge a fee of about 5-10%.
Also it is not secure because anyone who has your phone number can learn in what banks you have accounts. And if you have an account in Sberbank, anyone can lookup your name by your phone number. Very convenient for criminals and scammers.
>If the recipient wants to withdraw the cash in less than 30 days after receiving the payment, the bank may request documents that prove compliance with anti-laundering regulations.
The US is similar with amounts over $10,000. Structuring transactions to avoid that number is also forbidden.
> In the US, sending money to another person's account, especially as an individual, is a difficult process, often requiring giving long account and routing numbers that many of us were told not to give out
Writing a check instead won’t avoid that since the account and routing number are printed right on it
Oops, I could have reworded that paragraph to be clearer. Yeah, the check giver can't do much, but as the other commenters point out, the receiver of funds doesn't need to give out the numbers.
Our (the US) government, primarily the law making arm Congress, has been dysfunctional for so long it erodes various functions of society. For examples look at how the US doesn't have Federal bank accounts for individuals, or expanded services from the US Postal Service, proper simple taxation, straightforward immigration, digital identity management without the need for elaborate expensive physical identity documents--there are a range of issues that speak for themselves. Both of the prevailing parties have effectively the same problem, the Republican one has simply become so excessively backward and activist that it's more distracting, sort of a shiny object. Just consider gun rights and how there's no effective sense of responsibility associated with that right. Or that there's no Federal ballot mailing program for all locales and States (for example Puerto Rican's cannot vote for even the POTUS) despite there being high security and USPS services providing a solution with excellent scalability.
One reason, not everyone can or wants to open a bank account. Illegal immigrants, for example. Or people receiving food stamps, disability benefits, they often work for cash, because they can't show money in their bank account. You can cash a check at any walmart.
> Why would you use a piece of paper for any sum of money?
Because people like the assurance of a check, or a receipt, or a payment confirmation.
How do you initiate a wire transfer? Seems like you would need to know a lot about the recipient -- their bank and account number, for starters -- to be successful. Sure you could do it on a mobile device but seems a lot more time consuming than writing a check. Privacy concern as well.
What happens if the transfer fails or doesn't go through, for whatever reason? If you hand the recipient a check, they have physical proof that you intended to pay them, and they know the payer's bank and account number. What recourse, proof, or evidence does the recipient have for a failed wire transfer?
How do B2B transactions work? Is it all wire transfer or do they pay each other with checks? In the USA, a huge percentage of consumer payments have migrated from checks to debit/credit cards (with near-instant confirmation), but companies still use tons of checks via standard postal mail all the time.
Writing not from Poland, but from Czechia, which is similar. I have only seen checks arriving from the U.S., never used for payments within Europe as such.
If you receive an invoice to pay, it will have the correct account number on it. Also, nowadays, many merchants include a QR code that makes payment with mobile banking app much easier. You just start the app, it activates the camera, reads the image and all you have to do is confirm the transaction. Very fast and with few possibilities to make a mistake.
Landlords will give you their account number as well, it is usually written in the contract.
If transfer fails, it is your problem. I am not sure how Americans handle bounced checks, but if someone gave me a check that I was unable to clear, I would suspect them of fraud.
B2B is mostly wire transfers and sometimes credit cards. Bookkeepers prefer wire transfers, because matching them to invoices is usually trivial nowadays. Any good accounting program will do that for you.
As for privacy, I would feel a lot more comfortable giving someone my account number (they cannot really do anything bad with it) than my postal address. And if your business is a VAT payer, its account number will be publicly listed by the tax authority anyway.
All these issues (and many many other issues both in and outside of banking) have been solved problems for so long outside of the US that the rest of us have forgotten about them.
They've generally been "solved" as well inside of the US also, via debit cards, online/mobile banking, and ACH. I'd guess that most people handle fewer than 10 checks per year, outside of rent/mortgage. But there are occasions when checks come in handy and are preferable. I'm glad they remain an option.
> What happens if the transfer fails or doesn't go through, for whatever reason? If you hand the recipient a check, they have physical proof that you intended to pay them,
For most of Europe transfers are instant. So you’ll know if you’ve been paid or not pretty much immediately because you get a push notification confirming the payment within seconds of someone hitting send.
> Because people like the assurance of a check, or a receipt, or a payment confirmation
What is more assuring then the actual payment itself, transferred to you just as you talk?
> How do you initiate a wire transfer? [...] -- their bank and account number, for starters
Ugh, 21st century says hi.
Just a mobile number, some provider independent number, like SEPA [0] or in some circumstances just the plain plastic card number, be it a debit or a credit one.
> Sure you could do it on a mobile device but seems a lot more time consuming than writing a check
Scribbling something on the paper and taking it to the ATM/bank (or use said mobile to "online check it", oh irony) is sure to take more time than punching in some number in mobile or web app and actually transferring money.
Reconciliation, Retries and other aspects are baked into that standardised payment system.There are countries that have completely abondoned cheques since early 2000s.
Last time I used a check was about 15 years ago. And that was after moving to the UK in 2000 and having roughly the reaction above to even being given a checkbook. I'd never had a checking account before as that had stopped being a thing most people had back in the 1980s in Norway. When I got my first "adult" bank account in the 90s my bank didn't offer it even as an option to personal customers any more.
Just to give you an idea how quaint it seems to many of us to hear about checks.
Cheques are an anachronism. I think I remember seeing my mother write a cheque some thirty years ago. I have never written or received one myself. I doubt I know anyone under fifty who has. Unless they've lived in the US, of course.
Cheques are still pretty common in France, especially to transfer money from person to person for occasional transactions.
I really rarely use them but they are honestly pretty useful as a fallback to pay someone you trust (family, friend). It takes seconds to write, your grandmother knows how it works, it doesn’t require smartphone/a computer/a complex banking application, It doesn’t require communicating your bazillion characters long banking information, everyone accepts it for little sums, it works offline, it doesn’t require holding large amount of value, it’s easy to cancel if needed.
Yes it’s the least practical payment method and yes anything is better. But it always works where the rest doesn’t.
In the UK some people still use them. My elderly parents still occasionally send them to us. We don't take them to a bank or ATM though - bank apps will accept a photo of one and make the transfer instantly.
I'm in the USA, and I will use a check only if it is the only realistic option, and those cases are surprisingly common. I've probably written about 100 paper checks in the last 5 years or so. Looking through my records, here are some examples of places I do business with that do not accept credit cards, or charge a fee to use a credit card:
Define large sums of money, I can go right now to my bank and transfer 100,000€ instantly, or I can do a SEPA Credit Transfer if I ever need to, up to 999,999,999€.
So can I, or so could an American. But a cheque can be written on the spot, and as long as the recipient trusts the writer it's as good as cash. That's the real reason cheques are still around. No one writes a cheque to pay for groceries or a $2 item at a convenience store anymore, the way my mother used to do 35 years ago. For established relationships its often the simplest method, and it doesn't require an Internet connection or technology beyond a pen.
A large-ish cheque is $500-$50 000. Larger amounts would generally go through wire transfers.
Personally, I have never written a cheque, and have only had to purchase a money order once for an rental apartment damage deposit. But I have received plenty of cheques, either from work I've done for small businesses, or as regular paycheques before I set up direct payments with my employer.
I used to think like some here, that cheques are obsolete and anyone who uses them is dumb. But I was wrong; they serve a purpose, and there is no harm in them sticking around.
> the very idea of having to drive somewhere to physically deposit pieces of paper to transfer money around sounds absurd
The reason the US banking system is so relatively slow and manual compared to foreign systems is that the US has never felt a need to create a cheap and efficient federal electronic check clearing system. The US is a capital generating superpower and a marginal improvement in banking would be a drop in the bucket. Most other countries either need quick and efficient banking to maintain their capital generating industries or quick and efficient banking is their industry.
I bought my current car second-hand from a dealer. The best interest rate I could get by far was the line-of-credit loan I already had for my house. I bought the car on my credit card and eventually paid for it with the loan. Automatically done by the bank, of course. Even handling cash feels slightly old-fashioned to me.
I live in a country that still mostly prefers cash to electronic money transfers for many transactions. The individual reasons for that vary but mine is that I want to minimize the ability of third parties to profile me through my purchases (neither stores nor my bank).
There is the same thing in EU, widely used by people without internet banking. It just has a different name and is usually handled by the post offices.
You're talking about bank transfers by paper order, right? That's different, because you don't give the order paper to the recipient of the money (who should then cash/deposit it at their own bank), but to your own bank, which will wire the money to the receiving account.
Is that still widely used? I think manual transfer orders have largely been replaced by direct debit (companies taking the money you owe them straight from your bank account).
Here in Central Europe we use "postal money orders". It works almost exactly like a check, the only difference is that the money is transferred to a state post organization first, then the paper slip is given to the recipient, and the recipient can either cash it out or have the money transferred to their bank account.
It's widely used by older people to receive pension and pay rent/utilities (these people often don't have access to internet banking, or don't know how to use it, or don't trust it), and by all other age groups to receive social security money (these people are often unable to have a bank account or would have their money taken from the account due to "executions" - payment orders forced on them by courts).
> Is that still widely used? I think manual transfer orders have largely been replaced by direct debit (companies taking the money you owe them straight from your bank account).
It depends on how much you trust that company with taking the right amount of money out of your account. Both fraud and honest mistakes on their side are your risks, even though they might be very low risks in practice.
Over-charging is actually very common, and then it's up to you to notice, then fill many forms (last time I had this problem I had to fill over 10 forms) and then personally visit their branch, and then wait months to get your money back. It's much better to pay by permanent payment order (automatic payment e.g. every month).
SEPA (European) direct debit payments can be reversed with about two clicks in your online banking environment. No questions asked. I believe you have three months to do that, or even longer if the company doesn't have your handsigned signature approving direct debit.
Of course, the company on the other side may not be happy, and may be sending you bills and threats. But that's no different when refusing to pay without direct debit. And yes, it's up to you to notice any errors. I haven't heard of any cases of outright fraud using this system, though it probably happens.
- there are fees and commissions for using a card, and there are limits on how much cash you can withdraw daily/monthly
- bank also charges the merchant and it makes prices higher for everyone
- bank knows what and where you buy, collects this information and can resell it
- your name is written on the card and encoded inside, so when you pay the merchant can identify you
- cards have a magnetic tape that is unencrypted, can be easily copied. It seems like the only use for this tape is to allow criminals to copy the card.
- new cards include RFID label that allows reading data about you and charge your account
- if you are suspected to be an "extremist", then the bank will allow you to withdraw only about $150 per month. And you can become a suspect if you post something wrong on the Internet.
There aren't for you as a customer. Yes, a bank would require the acquiring fee for each transaction but it's already in the price of the item both for the cash and the card.
> it makes prices higher for everyone
While true deep down there, the price of item is usually still covers all the things including returns, inventory spoilage, breakage and shoplifting. Acquiring fees are ~1-2% so most of the time they don't even register over a markup.
> bank knows what and where you buy, collects this information and can resell it
Most people are just fine with using an affiliate cards... which are used for exactly the same.
> your name is written on the card and encoded inside, so when you pay the merchant can identify you
Your card number is a way more unique identifier than some John Doe.
> cards have a magnetic tape that is unencrypted, can be easily copied.
Everyone (except US) moved from tape to chip and paypass systems which are way more secure.
> new cards include RFID label that allows reading data about you and charge your account
Only the card number and it is limited for small amounts.
> if you are suspected to be an "extremist", then the bank will allow you to withdraw only about $150 per month
This is the only thing where cash is obviously better for an ordinary person.
I guess it depends on the bank or on the country. In Russia some banks have a small fee (usually about $1-$2 per month) for using a debit card, some don't have and some will charge a fee unless you spend more than a certain amount every month or deposit a specific amount. There can also be a small fee for issuing/reissuing a card.
Then there are indirect costs. You will probably want to receive SMS notifications when your account is debited or credited, and this is not free for cards that don't have a monthly usage fee. There can even be a fee for withdrawing funds from a debit card (using issuer bank's ATM).
Recently I read through different banks' terms and there are lot of things they can charge you for. For example, one bank will charge a fee for counting coins or small bills if you bring too much of them. Or there can be a fee for withdrawing money in bank's office below certain limit.
Generally, it seems that banks don't like customers who don't pay a fee - directly or indirectly (when making a purchase).
> In Russia some banks have a small fee (usually about $1-$2 per month)
Well, everyone everywhere wants a small fee for everything. Look at the cellular networks/providers... Although $1-2 is honestly cheap enough to have the convenience of cash-less operations.
> unless you spend more than a certain amount every month or deposit a specific amount
Amusingly this is exactly what I have right now, but I only discovered it pretty recently. Years ago it was really free for me because it was the company which footed the bill, but I don't work there anymore.
> There can even be a fee for withdrawing funds from a debit card
People should vote with their wallets against such practices. And honestly that should be illegal, but...
> one bank will charge a fee for counting coins or small bills if you bring too much of them
If I understand this properly this is against the law, at least if you are paying for something.
> it seems that banks don't like customers who don't pay a fee
Which is unsurprisingly because they are "for profit" institutions.
Also often traveling to 3rd world countries / somewhat corrupt locales. In these cases I make sure to have cash for bribes when the police invariably decide to shake me down.
A few months ago (in 2021!) I moved, so my old insurance had to reimburse some €40. While they never had any issue with getting paid directly from my bank account, for some reason they couldn't do the reverse and had to send a check.
All our banks (NZ) stopped issuing cheque books and accepting cheques over 2020 - 2021. There were some rather elderly people who were inconvenienced, but the banks were pretty good at helping them adjust.
And it has been a very long time since anyone really accepted payment in cheque form - just due to the crime associated - back in the days when new chequebooks were mailed out to customers, criminals would routinely check mailboxes for letters that felt like a chequebook.
Still reasonably common, as it's (amazingly) usually cheaper than sending an electronic transfer. At least, that's my experience doing business banking in the US. (I'm Canadian, so don't have a lot of experience with personal banking there.)
About the being cheaper: checks are usually free. For Wells Fargo - a large U.S. bank - when you schedule payments online they will print a check and send it for free. If you want to transfer money via wire you are actually charged.
Coming from the EU I was shocked to find out that a lot of the B2B payments for small and mid size companies - are done sending checks in the mail.
Routing and account numbers are considered sensitive information, and normally hidden on online banking. My understanding is that these can be used to transfer money out of the bank account.
yah, it usually takes me 1-2 uses of any given atm to have the whole flow memorized for getting cash out, so that the next time i go, it's like speedrun time.
even at grocery self-checkout, the quirks of a given checkout machine get embedded in my brain so that i gravitate toward the quickest route through. produce lookup and weight vs. count are usually the biggest stumbling blocks. one nice trick is that the credit card terminal is independent from the checkout flow, so you can do those more-or-less in parallel towards the end.
The longer someone is at the counter, the more likely you are to see them. You’re biased towards seeing the relatively few people who take half an hour.
I'm reminded of this train/bus is taking ages to come.
If one comes, say, every 15 minutes, that's an average waiting time of 7.5 minutes (and there's a +/- of around a minute for whether the 'time' is arrival, doors opening, closing, departure, depending on one's perspective of which 'time' is important to them).
If one's already there, or comes within 1-2 minutes, that's perceptively close to time = 0, which pushes out perceived average waiting time to 8-9 minutes with times approaching or exceeding average waiting time having a disproportionately negative perception (your total journey time/connection impact, expectation of unannounced cancellation, etc, increasing).
Nifty modern stuff like indicator boards work to re-align these perceptions.
Passage of time is also quite non-linear - back to the ATM queue. When using the ATM I'm engaged in a series of short-term tasks, just as writing a comment on HN when sitting on the subway causes stations to pass 'faster'.
And back to the ATM - I'm sure there's someone somewhere in a retail banking team that measures average interaction with ATM timings. Do they read HN or would like to comment?
My favorite chestnut regarding this is the one that occurred at Houston Intercontinental: https://archive.ph/Z3gjx
> SOME years ago, executives at a Houston airport faced a troubling customer-relations issue. Passengers were lodging an inordinate number of complaints about the long waits at baggage claim. In response, the executives increased the number of baggage handlers working that shift. The plan worked: the average wait fell to eight minutes, well within industry benchmarks. But the complaints persisted.
> Puzzled, the airport executives undertook a more careful, on-site analysis. They found that it took passengers a minute to walk from their arrival gates to baggage claim and seven more minutes to get their bags. Roughly 88 percent of their time, in other words, was spent standing around waiting for their bags.
> So the airport decided on a new approach: instead of reducing wait times, it moved the arrival gates away from the main terminal and routed bags to the outermost carousel. Passengers now had to walk six times longer to get their bags. Complaints dropped to near zero.
Thanks to this, after your flight you no longer walk 3 minutes and then rest for 15.
You get to partake in a half-marathon, dragging along your jetlagged kids and your numerous bags, jackets, etc. It’s a excellent example of optimizing for metrics instead of optimizing for people.
Imagine your hotel moving the valet service from downstairs to a parking lot two miles away. You tell the reception desk you need your car, and sure enough, your car is ready by the time you’ve made the walk.
Imagine being so detached from reality that you think making your passengers take an extra 20-minute walk around the terminal is an elegant solution
> It’s a excellent example of optimizing for metrics instead of optimizing for people.
It seems like the opposite. The change directly led to less complaints from people. It's more like optimizing for human comfort rather than giving people what's supposedly best for them via an objective metric. Though I'd say even more specifically (assuming the story is even true) it's optimizing for keeping the small percentage of squeaky wheels comfortable.
I mean, I really doubt this story actually happened the way it did, if only because at most major airports gate capacity is so constrained that there is no such thing as a separate gate for arrivals that you can just move planes to. (Planes arrive and leave from the same gate; any more moving around and they'd be wasting precious taxiing capacity and man hours, so if an airplane is getting moved it's usually for maintenance or to standby somewhere else.)
> there is no such thing as a separate gate for arrivals
You might be surprised. In many of the newish airports I've been to (outside the US) the gates are designed such that arriving and departing passengers for the same aircraft never bump into each other.
They do this by clever design; immediately after exiting the aerobridge and onto the terminal building, there's a split (staircase or a sloping walkway) of some kind. So, the departing and arriving passengers are on different floors.
In every international airport I’ve been too, this is achieved with a gate that has entrances to two or three levels. International arrivals on floor A and everyone else on floor B, sometimes also splitting domestic arrivals and departures.
The frustration with waiting at the carousel is not the time it takes but the fact that you have no idea how much time it takes. So you're just sitting there in alert mode looking for your things.
If they had given customers information about _when_ their luggage would be available for pickup, the complaints would probably also have dropped to zero.
And it has a negative impact for the people without checked bags, but they’ll never realize that something changed — their life just gets imperceptibly worse. Big oof.
It also makes it worse for people with checked bags. In the past, you got to decide what you wanted to do with your time - taking a long hike around the terminal was always an option. Nowadays everyone is forced to partake in the jetlagged death march
There is also the effect that buses arrive imprecisely and consequently may be best modeled as a Poisson distribution of arrival times. If this is the case and buses arrive on average every 15 minutes, then passengers arriving at random will wait not 7.5 minutes but 15 on average.
Intuitively, think of throwing a dart at the time line. We are more likely to hit the line in the bigger gaps between buses’s arrivals than between buses that arrive close to each other.
With buses you will on average end up waiting longer than the average rate when there's heavy traffic because sometimes they get stacked up right behin each other, and two (or once I had three) buses arriving at once is the same as one big one operating at a fraction of the rate. I remember this being relatively common when I used to take the bus.
But those are also the people who ruin it for everyone. Why not heavily optimize for the 90% good case via full automation and discourage time intensive behavior. I'm thinking either only taking online reservations or doing a 30% surcharge for walk-ins. The happy case should be that I book online, I get a parking spot location where the car is and a QR code I show on exit. Hertz Gold at SFO is like 80% there, yet the normal case remains having to walk to a desk. It seems in their interest to discourage going to the desk as much as possible.
Would be interesting if they offered a subscription service and/or loyalty tier that gives you "real" reservations. Call it "$BRAND Car Guarantee." That way, you know that the customers are committing to actually get their cars, and you can make a term of service that you don't miss N cars per T time (this would be displayed prominently - call it something friendly like "house rules").
Boom, everyone's happy. Your repeat customers are more likely to stay that way, and people will hear about this and _become_ repeat customers because that's what it incentivizes. You can keep prices cheap by overbooking your non-loyalty cars like you already do.
The interesting part is WHY for some people it takes so long that everybody else has to wait.
Imagine being on a high speed train and having to travel at the speed of the slowest train in front or if e-mail were sent using snail mail.
It obviously happens frequently enough that virtually everyone who ever rented a car - even only that one time - noticed it, so why they do not optimize for that?
I used to rent cars very often and I had to wait every single time I went there, it's not really a bias, it's a certainty.
Lately there have been some improvements on that front and a couple of the major rental companies made it almost painless if you are a regular customer, but it's still a lottery most of the times.
The key is preparation. It’s the same for me at hotel check-ins. I’m always prepared, I have all my info available in my mobile or on paper, I’ve already thought about the trip several times before and on the way.
Some people seem utterly unprepared. They either don’t have their info at all, or have to login to their web mail, or find some printed paper at the bottom of their enormous suitcase. And then they tend to have tons of questions. I check out the facilities beforehand online so I know what to expect and how to use them.
I recently rented a car for the first time, with a co-driver. The rental was paid in advance online (which seemed to be the norm here in the UK) and I thought it was going to be fairly straightforward and quick to collect the car.
Instead, after waiting about 15 minutes for the single person ahead of us in line to be processed, we were met with a series of demands for various sorts of verification and documentation that has not been mentioned in the online checkout process. This included having to use a .gov.uk website to get a code that would allow the company to validate our driving licences, and provide a proof of address (despite our addresses being printed on our government-issued, just-verified-authentic driver's licences.)
The whole process took nearly half an hour just at the desk. I am glad that there was no one waiting in line behind us most of that time.
I've now joined ZipCar and will hopefully never have to deal with a traditional car hire company again.
Car rental in the U.K. as a U.K. resident is more complicated than car rental as a non-U.K. resident. Not 100% sure why, but it seems that U.K. residents are required to basically do full IDV (which requires two proofs of address) and prove they have no points in their licence.
None of this applies to non-U.K. residents, which probably make up the majority of customers, so the rental website usually put all these details in the fine print.
Also while your looking at Zipcar (which is great) also take a peek at Virtuo. Only place I’ve ever enjoyed renting a car from.
Seriously, I have seen this phenomenon at government offices as well. Every other appointment seems to take ages, and mine takes a fraction of the time, no matter the outcome.
Maybe adding a surcharge for walk-ins or having a separate line for them seems like the way to go. Or maybe don't allow them at all and lay off the staff saved.
In Europe the companies I've dealt with try to confuse you into buying various insurances, where you were under the impression that you had already paid for it when doing the online booking. Figuring out what the actual situation is takes time.
Tip: Do your research and read the fine print online before you leave for your trip.
There's always someone trying to get a discount or unhappy with their car or something. This is why you join the rewards program, preregister and do the walk out program where everything is all preset and ready to go.
The same reason the software is ass at the car mechanic when they want to order parts: Legacy systems running on old VAXes, with UX upgrades consisting of screen scraping and fields you have to tab between.
And if you miss one: You gotta tab all the way until it wraps around and back to where you were.
The systems are often blazing fast underneath, but these crazy tab-forcing-90s-looking-UIs are stupidly common in airlines, car renrals, part ordering, smaller banks and anything else that started using centralized computer systems early but didn't expose those systems to end users.
I can hit the tab key 10 times in the time it takes my hand to reach the mouse and start to move it. And shift-Tab moves the other way, so if you miss a field you can go back with one keystroke.
I hate web forms that don't support tab key navigation between fields.
You'll have plenty of fun with 500-900ms delay added by a crappy Java front-end and even if it's on the shorter end consistently you'll love the odd 900ms bump for the screen scraper refresh making you hit twice since the crappy rubber dome keyboard doesn't register way too often.
Then back to tabbing through 20 fields until you stop at the right one again!
We're not talking quick modern UIs here, but screen capturing an old virtual terminal window hosted at headquarters, with OCR and color matching, all developed by some consultancy who went bankrupt in 2000, and because of how much depends on the legacy system noone dares to fix what's technically working.
It's a humbling environment to end up in as a young dev for sure. You'll be very disappointed that one guy in 1999 didn't think reversing would be needed.
It's all about pretty short term returns of course.
You can build a web interface separately (external contract ofc) and that will work in parallell, but aside from very basic services there are tons of edge cases, bad documentation, business customers with systems built with yours as a dependency. It's a little like any bank old enough still having paper file storage and the planned end of life is the literal death of all paper holding customers.
So the old system sticks around and as long as it does noone wants to buy a new set of computers to run in parallell with the old ones.
There are companies who try hard and end up sinking hundreds of millions of dollars into replacing old systems that only cost a server blade, ten devs and five people in operations to run.
With no clear benefit visible to the shareholders far from all of them have even started that move.
Do most people prefer to work that way, and are you representative of most people?
If many people have an issue with the UX paradigm, which is more likely, that they all are wrong, or that the one thing in common is the thing that's suboptimal?
Folks whose main job is to fill in a specific UI ought to be(come, swiftly) much, much better at using that UI than Joe Average User.
Sort of like how prior to barcode scanners in cash registers at supermarkets, the person working the till would become familiar using a numeric keypad fast, as well as with the prices of often-bought items.
I’ve worked with “most people”. Ran Workstream (AS 400 based) manufacturing (MRP) system with 200 operators. Every single operator preferred keyboard and DOS-like interface. Management tried to implement a browser based UI and it sucked so much.
There is a time and place for good ol keyboard driven UI. Don’t throw the baby with the whole bathtub.
I’d argue that most modern UI/UX sucks but that’s debatable. But legacy UI is fricking amazing in some cases.
Also: Shift + Tab can be implemented and it would solve your gripe.
WCAG compliant UI can both be intuitive for visual people and support tabbing.
Most modern UI/UX sucks because frontend has no discipline, in that a third the people seem to be random students pulled off the street getting drafted in and another third are backend people getting drafted in, and it's debatable IMO which is worse.
Funny that you single out VAX (and implicitly VMS).
DECForms actually allowed for the programing of very spiffy user interfaces, which worked very well on VT terminals. Input could be handled extremely fast and efficient by a (semi-) experienced user.
You probably meant Mainframe terminals, which had no ability to handle asynchronous key input, but where you could only send complete pages to the mainframe.
Source: I worked with both. Moving from Unisys 1100 mainframes (and all their horrible utilities) to VAX and VMS was an epiphany.
I'd still argue that a lot of VMS software was actually better and handled better than the bloat we have to deal with nowadays.
Oh I connect to a VMS-system for work daily until new year (then we're getting replaced and I'm off to find something more modern, I guess)! VMS is a delight. So much more pleasant for the user than the IBM-boxes, but I do have very specific VAX-based systems in mind! Though, the example is a mish mash of that and what I've seen lately from customers running AS/400s.
But in both cases it's "awesome cool new user interfaces" made some time in the past to try to make the terminals easier to use for staff at sales locations.
Very hyped about OpenVMS 9, but will probably migrate myself over to being a more generic developer =)
Why is there even a counter? With Hertz Gold we just get a text message that tells us where the car is. We get in. Papers and key are in there and those get checked for about ten seconds at the exit. That's it. So much more effective for everyone. Budget's equivalent has a weird board that someone needs to update with the info. So much more effective for company and customers. However, for some reason that's the premium experience for which you party the loyalty program. It makes no sense to me that this isn't the heavily encouraged experience. I'd want to make this the only experience so that I have happier customers and can fire large portions of the counter staff. Ideally the paperwork that's in the car right now would be a PDF as well, so that you can lay off the people who do the printing.
When I return cars at my local Enterprise it's so absurd. I have to park the car to then go into a little house where I wait in line to talk to a guy in a suit who then runs out to check on the car to then come back in and tell me we are all set. Hertz at SFO had people with iPads where you park the car and you are out in under a minute. Why doesn't Enterprise fire half the guys in suits and put the remaining ones in yellow vests into the parking lot and get rid of the little building?!
This industry couldn't seem more ready for disruption.
I don't know how popular car sharing is in the US, but it's common in a lot of European cities, and there's literally nothing to renting a car (either short term or multiple days, admittedly, not at great prices for multiple days) than choosing one in an app and driving off. They validate your driver's license when you sign up.
I suspect the reason the counter is there is to upsell people, and that car rental companies make significantly more money because of that bad experience. But god, I would and do pay a premium to not have to deal with that crap.
These services tend to cater for the people who reside permanently in a particular city / country though. So not really useful for a traveler.
I used to use Drive Now as they were in ‘Europe’ (I.e. geographically spread across the continent) and they were even at the airport in Helsinki. Then they pulled out of London and Helsinki (and others) where they had been ubiquitous claiming that it was un-profitable. Before that it was ideal though as you could unlock a car at any airport or city with the same app, credit card, agreement etc. And the cars were basically identical too!
Now I have no desire to sign up for a different app/service etc in each city in a language I probably won’t understand and have to get familiar with how they operate (where can you park it, for how long, etc) so it’s back to the familiar rental car desks.
I hadn't tracked which cities they'd pulled out of, and have used them in a few places.
But my point was more that there's no structural reason for the rental friction, other than to upsell people. The risk profile, and things that need to be handled are basically identical for car sharing and car rental, and car sharing makes the process seamless, while car rental makes it intentionally annoying.
Absolutely - that is indeed a valid point. It would seem though that these sharing operations seem to be going after a different - perhaps newer and bigger, market slice than the traditional agencies.
It would indeed be great if they could bring this new way of operation to those too.
Yes, but not insanely so. A compact car for a week with Share Now is €42/day, and with Sixt it's €32/day. In a lot of cases, I'd happily pay that for the 1-2 hours of saved time in not dealing with the rental company, or booking things in advance.
I know specifically a lot of my friends who basically fall into that category: don't own a car, and decide same-day that they want to do a weekend trip, and would rather pay €20 more to not deal with contract, aggressive up-selling, pick up and drop off, refueling, inspection, etc.
How does the pickup work with car sharing? Do I have to the owners house?
I also have to admit that probably 90% of my annoyances comes from a mental issue I have where it really, really bothers me when I think something could be more efficient than it is, when I'm not impacted.
I think that's not the kind of car sharing they mean.
The car belongs to a car sharing company. In Munich for example there is Share Now, Miles, Sixt Share, and some specialized ones. The cars are parked all over the city in normal parking spots on the side of the road. Using the app, you find the closest one, usually you'll find 2 or 3 within 500 meters (strongly depending where you are). You select it in the app, walk up to the car, use the app to unlock and are ready to go.
They are usually paid by the minute, but there is also packages for multiple hours or days. But I think for renting over multiply days, normal car renting is better. Sixt is pretty good. Takes no more than 5 minutes to pick up the car. You don't reserve a specific type, but a class of car. And when I reserve the cheapest class, until now I was upgraded to the higher class every single time. They even have a "Lucky Class" which will explicitly get you whatever they have available, up to the really nice ones.
Ah, thanks! I assumed they were talking about something like Turo which is like Airbnb for cars. We used to have something like you described with Smart cars in Portland. Zip car also used to be like this.
Sixt has the most streamlined rental of the major German rental companies (if you have their member card), but their prices aren't really lower than DriveNow or Miles, with still significantly more friction.
No, "car sharing" in this context is by large companies -- the main one here is a joint venture between Daimler and BMW.
Inside of the city, they can be parked in any public parking (mostly on street), and you can find them in the app. Just checked, to give a point of reference, and there are two cars available within 200 meters of my apartment, and 7 available within 500 meters. There are also special parking lots at the airport where car sharing cars park.
You can also have one delivered to you at a particular time, but that costs €30, and makes it where a taxi would be cheaper.
Oh, we had that for a while with Smart Cars in Portland and I think Zip cars were similar. However, I've never seen them at the airport and had never considered renting them for multiple days. I think with how car centric the US is you frequently don't just need a car for a specific ride, but multiple days to not get stuck.
My company used to use National. It was so nice. You could just walk into the garage, get into a car, and leave. I used the National Emerald Aisle for years, domestic and overseas, and also was able to use it for personal travel (on my own dime of course).
Then we switched to Avis and now I have to wait at the counter for someone to help me. Last time I traveled I had to wait like 20 minutes because the line was long. I hate it so much.
Honestly, even the preferred Experience at Avis leaves a lot to be desired. I’m switching back over to Hertz after being a National (Emerald for almost 10 years) and Avis (President’s Club for the last 8 years or so) and having horrible experience after horrible experience this year.
I’ve literally had Avis come and get a vehicle that I still had a week left on its rental from a hotel parking lot…and still can’t get an explanation from Avis as to why (or, even better yet, why they charged me for that extra week!)
Yes! It makes no frickin' sense in an age of internet booking, and this is why I, too, use Hertz Gold. As much as Hertz was raked over the coals in that recent Twitter post (seemingly justifiably), I have generally have pretty good experiences with them and hope to never again stand around at a counter having a moronic experience instructing somebody else to re-type all the information I've already typed in when I made the reservation in the first place.
One guess, from recent experience at Enterprise: so that you're nice and exhausted by the time they quickly flip to the signatures page, which is your first and last chance to catch whatever bullshit fees they tacked on. That was a $100+ lesson, and my credit card sided w/ Enterprise when I tried to dispute (because of course, my signature is right there on the contract).
I have found large variance on checkout processes between (European) countries. Take supermarkets. I lived in the NL, where scan, bag & pay takes 30 seconds to a minute, with a cart full maybe 1:30. The I moved to France where old people might take that long just to reach out and sign their checks. Once I saw a sign at the Auchan boasting that the handle customers on average in under 4 minutes now. I sometimes would wait 30mins in line. In the NL, I would never (have to) put up with that.
Its weird they wouldn't drive 150km to learn how to save sooo much time, not just the customer but also their own labour costs.
Hrmpph…obviously they’re not rewriting it in assembly behind the counter—that would be stupid. They’re doing a full build—recompiling it and running basic unit tests on it.
While that's indeed true, there's an easy way around it by joining their frequent renter club (whatever each one calls it). Bypass that desk entirely, go straight to car (in most locations, not all unfortunately). I'm no frequent renter, maybe once every other year, but still it works great.
It might be network slowness, one day at the rental counter all the paperwork had to be done by hand (and visa contacted by phone to process payment) because their system was down. It took a literal hour.
The terminal was unresponsive and displaying the following error: "cannot connect to mainframe" (This was in 2019).
Just a personal anecdote from dealings with rental companies, but that doesn't seem to be the only reason for this.
They're also seemingly cost-optimizing by advertising car A, and then hoping to give you an "or similar" car B at less cost to themselves. Sometimes in a way that blatantly doesn't match their own advertising material.
E.g. I've rented something like a VW Passat or other mid-sized-wagon, only to have the car rental try to pass off compact the size of a VW Golf as "similar".
They'll then budge when you point out that the suitcases you've got won't fit in the Golf, and that their own website shows that the VW Passat could fit X amount of large suitcases, but won't fit in the "similar" car.
Then it'll turn out that they do actually have a car that a reasonable person would classify as "similar" to the car you booked right there on the lot. They might even have the exact model you booked to begin with!
I've also experienced "softer" versions of this where the 5-10 advertised cars in a given "similar" category clearly have 1-2 models that stand out as noticeably cheaper. Guess which models I got every time I rented there?
Not something you can/should complain about, since the models all similar to a VW Golf, but cases where it clearly wasn't about inventory management. Instead it's systematic "down-selling" via deceptive advertisement that conveniently omits the proportion of the fleet represented by each "similar" model.
It's fascinating to me because my experience has always been opposite. I want a small car because I don't like to have a monster in unfamiliar territory. I'm always "upgraded" to something larger and when I indicate no thanK you, turns out they don't have a small car at all.
This included being given a muscle car instead of small SUV (not practical for a kid and pregnant wife:), and a culminated in a chrysler 300 which I drove away about 150km, then drove back 150km because it was just so much Nope Nope Nope as a car. I waited at the counter until somebody drove in with a sane vehicle.
So I tend to believe the notion there's just no actual inventory management and assignment. You get what they have.
> It's fascinating to me because my experience has always been opposite. I want a small car because I don't like to have a monster in unfamiliar territory. I'm always "upgraded" to something larger and when I indicate no thanK you, turns out they don't have a small car at all.
This exact thing happens to me all the time. One time the company tried to give me a car I have no license to drive (truck category instead of a van).
Other time I actually got upgraded by Enterprise to a nicer car but automatic instead of manual. I struggled to get out of the parking.
This is exactly my experience. I booked a small sedan and was given a Jeep Wrangler. I can’t drive it! I’m used to driving a smal hatchback. I’m sure I was a terror on the road to all around me.
Three years ago I went to CA to visit a friend and I specifically rented a Wrangler because I wanted a "fun" vehicle to drive, and it was a test drive of sorts. 2018+ Wranglers are nice vehicles.
I find a lot of rental "muscle cars" are in base trim with unresponsive transmissions (I got a challenger, charger, mustang and thunderbird in rental over the years... Plus the above mentioned chrysler 300 ugh) .
You put gas pedal down, and 1-2 or even 3 seconds later, the 2.5 tons of metal starts doing exciting sounding things. But it doesn't have the feel of a small responsive sport car some associate with "fast". And they tend to be wobblier in corners than some non sporty hatches with differently tuned suspension. This leads to the feel of "slow" even if ostensibly they have a thunderous v8 underneath somewhere :-/
You have to be so cross when you produce a car and that’s what happens to your client base. What do you do? Give it a facelift? Test when dealers don’t like it? “No no we want you to tell us which one you like least.”
In USA and certain degree Canada though "older people" is a huge rich client base. It's not necessarily a miss! Cadillac got re-cooled around second Matrix movie, but for a long time real estate / insurance agents and above-55 was basically their sum total audience (drug dealers aside :)... And it may be getting back there.
Oh gawd. The list. This was few years back but let me see:
1. It was huge and vast and over 5 meters long, but could not fit me - I am 188cm /6'2 and I had to bend my neck as it was too short in the cabin. With seat at lowest level. It did have a sunroof which I know impacts head space but for such a ridiculously long and non sporty car it was silly to shave few cm of needed head space. It also couldn't adjust seat and steering wheel in right proportion for my height - and while I'm tall I'm well on the easy part of bell curve.
2. I kept wondering if I'm sleepy or if there's a thunderstorm until I realized it had TINTED FRONT windshield. Didn't even think it was legal. It was definitely idiotic - I can't see outside as well as I should and other drivers can't see me as well as I should, especially since all other windows were even more heavily tinted - and this was a stock rental, not what some clueless teenager with disregard for reality did.
3.It had one of those wobbly knobs for gear shift. Ridiculous to operate, you have to look at screen to know which gear you're in. And so easy to dislodge! Yet, taking the same amount of space in the same spot as regular stick, so nothing gained and everything lost. (FWIW, I think there are gear stick alternatives that work, it's not like there's only "one true way" - e.g. Honda's system has supremely distinct look feel and feedback for each gear button and it's on dashboard so saves space; the Chrysler 300 knob is just clueless on all accounts).
4. It had a special spot for cell phone but it was already too small for current cell phones. And next to gear shift so when I went to reach for cell phone to stop it from falling, I changed gear.
I loved seeing the message "you're going too fast to engage reverse". The only thing stopping me from massive car wreck was a line of code written by cheapest bidding developer.
(again, long ago, but I think it had something like push down to get out of parking, but only soft detents for all other gears? It just felt scary and unresponsive and awful design; others must like it since it's there to this day:)
5. I don't remember details but I remember feeling there was complete lack of control. I don't think I could influence which gear it is in (higher trims may have had paddles but not this model). I don't think I could been choose rwd or awd mode. It had some stupid auto /as needed system. etc
6. Gauges area was colourful but I seem to remember the UI being poort. e. G. Huge picture of car but tiny little subtle colouring of wheels to show if it's in rwd or awd mode.
7. Too many things on touch screen as opposed to buttons. I forget details but I think I had to go two menus in to turn seat heater or change fan direction or something.
8. Did I mention it was more than 5 meters long (even though I couldn't fit into it), With horrible visibility? And darn near 4,500 pounds, with inertia and momentum to match. I think 300+ horses but nothing to show for it - you could overtake easily on highway in a straight line once you gave the car enough time & notice that you really actually wanted to do so, but completely unresponsive otherwise. It was a big lumbering beast and just not the car to drive in a new place as a sole occupant.
Overall just felt like an uncontrollable boat with awful milleage poor visibility horrible handling and impractical interior. The guy felt excited about the "upgrade" but after 2 hrs in it I realized I'd be steaming for the rest of the week and drove back to return it. My work colleague has one and adores it - wants to buy even bigger rims and washes it every weekend with love; though it may be an older model before the UI issues, to each their own - was not my cup of tea :)
Edit /Ps : fwiw and for calibration, car I ended up enjoying the most, unexpectedly, for business trip rental was... Chevy trax. Ridiculous underpowered stubby thing I'd never purchase, but it had superb visibility, short wheelbase, easy to get in and out of, intuitive control, predictable handling, good on milleage, easy to fit luggage in, easy to park. It was Great car for new places (note all of this was pre covid; WFH since)
The dead giveaway that you aren't in the US is that an automatic is an option. In the US, it is (to my knowledge) literally impossible to rent a vehicle with a manual transmission from a mainstream rental outfit.
In Europe sometimes it's the reverse. I had to literally drive to another country once (fortunately, in Europe it's much less of a big deal than in the US) to be able to rent a car with automatic. I can drive a manual, in theory, but with me decades out of practice and my family on board, I'd rather not...
I had a situation where I found a fantastic deal on the company's own site for a Volvo XC-90, which I booked. When I got to the location they told me they have never had or seen any Volvo model. They offered me a Cadillac XT4, a worse and smaller car, at a significantly higher price than the deal I had booked. Again, booked on their own website. It was egregious enough that it felt like it should be illegal.
you didn't have a screenshot, printout, or email with the reserved price clearly indicated? (on second thought, car rentals, especially at airports, generally have a huge markup due to airport facility fees, service fees, and local taxes -- but even that should have been clearly displayed on the confirmation you received at the time you made the reservation).
I'm guessing he didn't reserve it and just showed up as a walk-in. I could see someone new to renting cars doing that, but it's a good way to pay a premium for urgency and suffer luck of the draw. Anyone experienced should know better as online reservations lock in the price, often at a discount, and guarantee the vehicle size or larger without paying more for the larger vehicle.
True. Must have been a hole-in-the-wall local place if he actually booked it. I don't know why he wouldn't have pulled out the confirmation at the counter, either.
I did have a confirmation email that listed the price and the car, the person behind the counter and the manager said they couldn't honor that deal because the car didn't exist and I had paid the rate for a lower tier of car. If I wanted a car that could fit 4 adults and luggage I had to pay the difference. It was Sixt in downtown Manhattan.
Searching for "Sixt bait and switch" returns a fair number of stories and reviews that are similar to my experience.
It might be, but what you're gonna do, sue them from behind the counter? You probably don't even have independent (i.e. not relying on their website) proof that's what the site said... But even if you do, how many people would bother? Eventually, somebody would launch a class action, but by then clever marketing person who launched that promo would already be promoted.
Yup, this happened to me all the time. My family of four will always rent the minivan, which will inevitably be swapped for some SUV. All you have to say is that you don't want the SUV, you want a minivan, but it's annoying to have to go through the charade every time.
Since the Golf is a hatchback and the Passat is a sedan, it is very surprising that the Passat would have more cargo capacity. Car and Driver currently shows 17.4 cubic feet for the Golf and 15.9 for the Passat, although perhaps they were inverted in a different model year.
Passat is a far far larger sedan than golf is a hatchback. Any magazine indicating golf has more capacity is doing deceitful apples and oranges - I assume golf with rear seats down (a two seater) vs Passat as full five seater.
Jetta is the sedan version of golf (roughly) and as a five seater it is full 50cm longer than golf. Passat is another 25 cm. It's just more car than golf.
(mind you, I'd always get a golf over Passat but that's precisely because I want a small car and don't need a cargo carrying boat :)
It's 17.4 cubic feet with rear seats up, 53.7 with rear seats down. The Golf is surprisingly roomy! I moved across the country in one (granted, before I owned any furniture, but with several suitcases and large plastic tubs full of stuff...)
That's astonishing to me! My sister has golf and her husband a Jetta. I love the golf but Jetta is, as designed, a bigger car. There are definitely loads that will fit golf and not Jetta due to different trunk entry ways, but I'm still surprised to hear that in terms of sheer volume, golf wins with seats up :O
Oh absolutely; it just always felt like what Passat gained horizontally offset what it lost vertically. Again, not that I'd go for a sedan over hatchback personally... and if it can't even make up the lost cargo space, the point of long sedans is even more lost on me.
A problem with renting any non-sedan car in the US is that the rental companies tend to remove the back shelf, leaving the contents of the trunk exposed. This means you can’t realistically stop anywhere and leave even small luggage hidden in the car. For this reason, I tend to refuse SUVs and hatchbacks, and insist on a sedan.
I had the opposite problem, I always reserve a small four door fuel sedan, and several times they upselled me an SUV or sports car "at no cost". Well I don't like driving big or fast cars and I want good fuel economy since I'm driving 100+ miles. That's a real cost!! No can do.
One time, I took the fast car because TINA and didn't notice how light the pedal was on a downhill section of the freeway and got a speeding ticket. So that "free upsell" cost me $350.
> I had the opposite problem, I always reserve a small four door fuel sedan, and several times they upselled me an SUV or sports car "at no cost".
That's clearly another consequence of "You can book any car with any rental company and cancel up until the minute of the rental or just not show up and there's no penalty.": they've run out of the smaller cars and only have one larger one left (e.g., more than X% of the people with smaller car reservations showed up, but less than X% of those with larger cars - and if you think this through, I think you need to bias towards larger cars in your planning to avoid not being able to provide an at-least-requested-size car when the opposite case arises).
> One of the biggest frustrations people have is that it seems impossible to actually get the car you reserved.
There is one way to avoid this, at least in my experience: be a business traveler. I've noticed a big difference in speed of service when traveling for business vs. traveling for personal reasons. I suspect that rental car companies know that business reservations are (a) much more reliable in terms of the person actually showing up for the car, and (b) much less likely to be able to change from the specific car type that's been reserved, since that's being determined by some corporation's booking rules rather than an individual's preferences.
You do get better service (very little upselling), but I haven't seen much better in terms of getting the car selected. When travelling for business, I usually book the smallest car available (or the least expensive if it's not the smallest), because it's just me. I've been given three row SUVs and minivans.
OTOH, it takes nothing to sign up for the rental company's 'frequent renter' programs and that usually gets you access to a priority counter or line, which can save a lot of time when the regular counter is busy. Usually a car will be waiting for you when you get there, but depends on the facility and the busyness factor.
> it takes nothing to sign up for the rental company's 'frequent renter' programs and that usually gets you access to a priority counter or line
Yes, I've done that with most of the major rental companies, and I agree it does cut down on wait time considerably. My experience has been that the service itself still varies considerably by location (although I've still found it to be better when traveling on business). The vast majority of my rentals have been at airports and it's very hard to predict which ones will have better service; I've had very bad experiences at large airports where you would think they would have the process down pat, and good experiences at smaller airports.
I've had good luck explicitly not renting at airports. Airport rentals often cost more, some airports charge an additional fee to rental car agencies who then pass that on to the customer, and I'll often have an easier time getting the car I want at a medium sized lot.
It seems like this would be a relatively easy thing to make optional, along the lines of "pay ahead for a gauraunteed car (no refund)". Customers that want to pay at the counter can still do so, but will be competing for cars with any other customers that didn't pay ahead.
As with many things related to travel, most of the time it works and nobody really cares, some smaller percentage of the time it's an inconvenience customers will grumble about but put up with, and then very occasionally it's a deal-breaking experience. If you don't travel that often, chances are you had a bunch of "it just worked" experiences and maybe one or two "grumbly inconvenience" ones.
I'm not renting cars now, but when I did, I would just find the cheapest middle-tier car I could to reserve. The website always had, for example, a Chrysler 200 and a BMW in the "luxury" tier, the former for half the price, cus it's a POS. But, in my experience, no matter which one you reserve, you're gonna get a random vehicle from the tier (or higher), so might as well save the money.
The only way that competition could fully explain the lack of reservation enforcement is if people don’t actually care that much about their reserved car being unavailable, right? If there is in fact sufficient competition to cause the rental companies to match customers’ preferences, this must mean that people would rather have the risk of their reserved car being unavailable than to prepay to hold the reservation.
Exactly. Much like the fact that everyone complains about Basic Economy airfares ("they're nickel-and-dime'ing you for carry-on!!!") the reality is that in the face of competition, people still just choose the lowest airfare.
Same with rental cars. Everyone complains about reservations, but when push comes to shove people aren't actually willing to put their money where their mouths (and complaints) are.
Personally I think the opposite: that there isn’t actually sufficient competition for whatever reason. It seems to me that people choose the lowest fares because unless you pay double there’s not going to be a meaningful difference between slightly different economy fares. Likewise AFAIK there is no option to prepay or pay a deposit to reserve a rental car and have it be guaranteed.
The challenge is that it’s clear the vast majority are willing to put up with a lot to get a low fare.
And that includes me. I remember flying return from SFO to Barcelona for $500 on a budget international airline (Norwegian Air). No food service, no drink service, but it was a A380 fleet so quite comfortable. Read the fine print and you avoid all excess charges like printing tickets, bagged checkin fees, etc. Cheaper than flying return from SFO to NYC.
For those that aren’t willing to go cheap, there is now Premium Economy which seems to be growing in size as a class. I think Singapore Airlines now run flights that dont have basic economy any more. It’s either premium economy or business.
The complainers are not a cross section of customers. The complainers generally are high end luxury consumers who can and would pay more but there aren't enough of them to actually actually matter beyond noise making. The people who are penny pinching are happy they can get the right good or service at the right price.
If it were easy(-ier) to compare apples to apples with the “add ons” I wouldn’t care. But when one airline is $50 for a bag on a certain flight but $30 on others and another airline is $20, it’s hard to know which airfare is actually cheaper.
And this is one way they keep you married to them, with rewards and so on, by eliminating those for loyalty. Amex Platinum avoids most of this, but you can only get the nickel and dime repaid from one airline at a time.
Thank you for reminding the room that markets can fail to provide at a middle price tier because there simply aren’t enough people willing to pay. The only remaining options are the super-premium, which most of what would have been the middle market can’t afford, and basic economy.
The problem is that you usually desperately need a car when you are at the pick-up point. I can only drive an automatic and am less than 5' tall so some cars are just too big for me. I've had times where instead of the car I have booked, I'm only offered cars that I can't legally or safely drive. I just now don't arrange any travel that requires a rental car. Which is limiting but not sure what else to do!
100% Clearly they could offer that option - "pay now (non refundable) to reserve this exact car" but it's a pretty obvious solution if this was really a problem and the fact that they don't do that suggests that it isn't.
Honestly it never even occurred to me that anyone would care. On car hire websites they're pretty explicit that you're getting a certain kind of car, not an exact model.
That only holds if there's an alternative you can go to that will actually have what you reserved.
If the entire industry, having raced to the bottom years ago, operates the same way, how is the unavailability going to hurt them in practice? You're still standing at their desk, needing a car.
I know someone who exploited this and would just keep a reservation handy in their city in case they needed a car, cancelling at the last minute. It was basically a zipcar for them with no membership fee.
Autoslash still uses a similar business model. They’ll keep checking rental rates right up until the day of your reservation, automatically canceling the old reservation and making a new one.
Haven’t used it in quite a while due to Covid, but it was pretty cool booking for $40/day, then seeing it go down to $35, then $27, then $22 and finally $19. All automatically.
How come the rental company doesn't wise up to his phone number or name? Are they that afraid of losing a customer that let them down a hundred times before?
I'd just tell him that there's no cars, or something.
Sure, but that’s just one possible way of implementing enforcement of reservations, which the first commenter claims is untenable because of competition.
The untenable part seems to be 'anticipation of sticker shock' though - a reputation system would affect chronic cancelers but (assuming your PR department is on its toes) quite possibly largely not be visible to incidental cancelers or people who're not actually going to cancel and are just scared of getting screwed.
It still might not work, but as implementation approaches go, the business risks seem substantially different at least.
In your opinion why isn't the industry "distrupted"? It seems pretty ripe for a new startup built by industry veterans and with funding to build an app that allows users to rent a car smoothly, manage fleets, keep cars for longer, track them, without all the dark patterns and hidden costs.
Am I being an idealist? Are the dark patterns and hidden costs mandatory to become profitable? What are the unit economics preventing from such a thing to exist?
Renting car is painful and stressful if you're not a business user (or high tier member).
Yeah it seems it'll be pretty rough and capital intensive entering the market, but it seems so obvious that I wonder why there isn't a company like Uber or Airbnb that VCs want to pour money into. Turo would be the obvious comparison but I don't think the same model can apply for cars.
Sixt are trying. Their goal seems to be to offer a one-stop service whether you need a car for five minutes or five years.
Like, round the corner from me right now is a VW Golf. I can jump in it and drive it away immediately for €0.30 a minute (pricing is demand-based, it can be cheaper than that). No additional costs whatsoever, the only condition is I have to park it somewhere within their operating area when I'm done with it.
If I want to keep it for a few hours, or a few days, all I have to do is choose the appropriate tariff. A certain amount of kilometres is included, and I can buy more if needs be. Doesn't cost me anything to park it in the city while I have it. Sure, it gets a bit pricey, but that's the cost of convenience.
Traditional rental is a bit more complicated, but not hugely - book through the app, collect, return. Anything longer-term than that is available through a monthly subscription, which is certainly more expensive than a conventional lease, but everything's taken care of and you can hand it back any time.
It kinda is in cities, but the challenge is having a country-wide network.
I'm in Germany, which may obviously differ from the US, but here's what I see: In cities new app-based services that are much, much more convenient to use take over. But they're only available in large cities (and even there only in the inner part of the cities).
If you need a car from "small city X" to "small city Y" there's simply no company other than Hertz, Europcar and Sixt that can offer you that. And it's hard for any other company to create such a network of locations.
Uber and Lyft have car rental options, although the experience between the two differs quite a bit, having used both in the past few months.
Uber car rentals is just a proxy for traditional car rental services like Hertz. All the aforementioned problems like reservation flakiness and weird fees applies.
On the other hand, Lyft car rentals is operated in-house and feels delightful in comparison. I usually reserve a few days before, take a Lyft to the fleet HQ with the provided credit, and roll out in <10m. Overall a super nice experience both times I’ve used it.
When I rented a BMW438i a few years ago I would have been severely upset if I had been offered a Toyota Camry instead. Similarly when I rented a rather nice Land Rover.
On the other hand I was not especially concerned when I didn't get the Skoda Octavia I had booked on another occasion; I was lucky then, I got a Mercedes C230 instead.
The reason I have multiple "reservations" and only use one, is because it's quite honestly the only way to ensure I might have a chance at one of them having a car for me.
Literally yesterday I showed up at the airport, armed with two reservations for a mid-sized SUV. Neither company had one and both companies were the same parent. I ended up with a smaller car than I "reserved".
I would happily pay a non-refundable deposit at the time of making the "reservation" if that meant when I walked up to the counter, they would have the car I want.
I did this recently with Hertz in Los Angeles. They still didn’t have a car, and the only recourse was to talk to someone on a phone instead of fixing it at the counter. Also that trip I learned that Los Angeles has a subway, though it’s not particularly good.
You can often make a reservation without providing billing information, so there's no mechanism to enforce a payment for no-show. If you prepay for the rental it's different, but there may also be a significant discount.
I do feel the remaining rental car businesses could live past their reluctance to enforce a partial reservation payment. A single day’s payment (for, say, one week’s rental) I feel is reasonable or $50.00.
Especially if it means better service, better cars, and a more consistent experience.
However, I only rent for vacations and I may be blind to the what the average renter demands/expects.
I've only rented a car a handful of times but it's funny I had that exact experience. Wasn't aware that reservations weren't actually holding the car. In my case they tried to force me to upgrade and when I refused they gave me the upgraded car for the same price as my reserve (~$20 less per day)
Well that opens up a niche to actually start a rental car business called “Real Reservations” and charge extra for actually reserving the car the customer is willing to pay extra premium for.
You could actually offer discounts and still come out ahead, likely far ahead as you’d be both guaranteeing a car and offering a cheaper car. Win-win, you just lose the terrible customers acting unethically.
Offer option of a reservation, maybe at extra fee. Pay if you cancel within 24h. Now clients have an option. Some might really want an X and be willing to pay a slight premium.
They actually are going the other way and offering discounts for prepayment since it ensures they will have a customer. The math it pretty easy: if the discount % is < than the no show percentage on regular reservations they’re making money
> And why don't they do that? Good 'ol competition. Everyone is afraid to start enforcing reservations because if Hertz does but Enterprise doesn't, people are going to book with Enterprise ("Book w/ us and never pay a penalty when your plans change!").
Competition brings out the best solution. The current system is the best overall solution. Most people don't really care what car they rent, and probably sometimes get an upgrade to a better car if they complain about not getting the car they reserved. By having this system, rental car companies can substantially reduce the cost of renting a car. It would be very expensive to intentionally have cars waiting on the lot for upcoming customers.
Here's one: One of the biggest frustrations people have is that it seems impossible to actually get the car you reserved. Seinfeld even has a whole schtick about this - why is it called a "reservation" if it's not actually....a reservation?
Reservations never work because the rental car companies don't enforce them. You can book any car with any rental company and cancel up until the minute of the rental or just not show up and there's no penalty. (Everyone forgets this part.)
If a rental car company actually treated reservations like reservations, then they'd hold your Toyota Camry for you and not give it to someone else. But then when you decide not to show up for your rental, the rental company would be stuck because they planned for you to show up and you didn't.
So they have two choices: Either assume there's only an X% chance you're going to show up and use that to roughly plan fleet availability for that given day (the current state of affairs which results in your not getting a car you reserved when X+10% of people show up that day instead of X%), or start penalizing people for not showing up so they can actually honor reservations.
And why don't they do that? Good 'ol competition. Everyone is afraid to start enforcing reservations because if Hertz does but Enterprise doesn't, people are going to book with Enterprise ("Book w/ us and never pay a penalty when your plans change!").
You will notice that they are tip-toeing into this -- lots of companies now offer discounts for pre-paid (non-refundable) reservations, but the no-penalty-for-no-shows-pay-at-the-counter option is still there. And until it vanishes, the reservation issue will still be there.