fbhjr

As I knew we were going to get in late at night, I had set my rental car pick up for Saturday morning instead of Friday night.

Saturday morning I let my wife sleep in and took the airport shuttle over to get my car.

I got to the rental hub for the airport and walked up to the Hertz counter.
“Hello, I think you have a car for me,” I said to the man there.

I gave him my license and credit card and he typed it into the computer.

“No, I don’t,” he said, handing them back to me.
“But, I have a reservation,” I said, pulling out my printout of the car reservation.
“Read this address,” he said, pointing to the address of where the Hertz office with my car was.
“That’s not here?” I asked. (I have no idea what the street address of the rental car place is.)
“That’s about 25 miles north of here,” he said.

Looking it up, he’s right:

“Is there some way to transfer that reservation here?” I asked him.
“No. There isn’t.”
“Is there any easy way to get there from here?”
“No. There isn’t.”
“Can you suggest some way to get there?”
“Take a cab.”
The cab the night before had cost be $11 to go about 1 mile. I was not looking forward to paying to go 25 times farther.

“Is there anything you can do to help me?” I asked him.
“Who’s fault is this?” he asked.
“I guess mine,” I said. “I guess I should have looked up that address and not just assumed it was at the airport, even if that is what I put into the computer where I reserved it.”

He looked at me.
“OK. You didn’t blame me. You didn’t yell at me. I’m going to try and help you. What did you need for a car?”
“I don’t care much about what kind. I’ve got to drive it to Boise Idaho and leave it there to fly back here. “
He picked up the phone. He talked for a bit with someone.

“I’ve got a car from Boise that needs to go back there,” he said. “If you drop it off there, I won’t charge you extra for the one way trip as it was going there anyhow.”
“OK.”
“It’s a Subaru Outback.”
“That will make my wife happy, that’s what she drives at home.”
“It counts as a large car, so it will be $450.”
“You just saved me $300 in cab fare. I’m OK with that.”
“Give me your credit card and license again.”

So, I’m not happy with Kayak, where I made the reservation. I am 100% sure I put in Seattle-Tacoma airport, for the location I wanted the car.

The man at the desk said other people have had the same problem.
I’m going to be leery about using them for cars again as this could have been much, much worse.

But, that guy at the counter was great. He really helped me out.
And, I appreciate it a lot.