Another PHL disaster

The PHL curse strikes yet again. After arriving two hours late, due to weather, last Sunday I arrived at Hertz a little before 2 a.m. to find that, while my name was on the Gold board, there was no car in the stall indicated. So I went over to the Gold office to find that they were closing up and sending us, there were more travelers in my position, over to the main office. This did not look too good, as there was already a line of at least twenty people waiting and only two agents. Luckily the opened a 'Gold' line with intially two agents. However, very quickly one of the agents disappeared, without any explanation. There was no visible manager at the office, no-one directing anything at all. The one person being handled in the gold line seemed to have some problem with his reservation and so I had to wait about twenty-five minutes before being helped. I was the next person in the Gold line, and I felt very sorry for the the five or six people behind me, as it seemed they would have a long, long wait.

During all this a manager surfaced briefly, looked at all the irritated people and disappeared again. The agents behind the desk seemed to have been dragged from everywhere, because the one that took over the 'Gold' line, had to ask other Hertz personnel about completing almost every part of the rental agreement. And yes, this was all being done by hand as the computers were down for their nightly maintenance. So when I was finally at the counter, it took another 15+ minutes to complete my paperwork. I walked across to the stall number that the agent had written down, and drove towards the exit almost over 45 minutes after arrival.


As the guard checked my paperwark and car, he looked a couple times and then, can you believe it, told me that I had the wrong car and that I had to go back to the office to sort it out. This really ticked me off as It was now after 2:30 am and I wanted to get to my hotel. The 'ghost' manager happened to be wandering the lot nearby, so the guard called him across. He also offered no other solution than returning to the office, so I removed my luggage from the vehicle and walked across to the competition (Avis). In spite of a line of people at the Preferred office, out was off the lot in less than 15 minutes.


I sympathize, a little, with Hertz that weather problems play havoc with the arrival of clients and pickup of vehicles but they need to find better ways to treat their regular customers.


Questions/comments for Hertz:

1. While there are still cars on the lot, why is the car allocated to me gone?
   
2. If my car is used, why was my name not removed from the Gold board?
   
3. If you know that the computers will be down, but still expecting a number of clients, why not print out the rental agreements before the system goes down, saving time when the client arrives. (They do this to have the RA hanging in the car for pickup, so it cannot be a big deal. Just need a special version, without vehicle number, which is the only thing that needs to be filled in at the time of pickup)
4. If you end up seriously inconveniencing your regular (Gold) customers, offer something, for example a free tank of gas. [In my case I normally use much less than a 1/2 tank anyway]

Sorry, Hertz a SUDOK for you. Any rental company can rent a car, but it takes a good location to handle difficult situations well.