Hertz Car Rental - Honolulu - Daniel K Inouye International Airport (HNL) — Attraction in Honolulu

Here is the background. I booked a 2-week family vacation in July 22 with the first week in Maui and second week in Oahu. For both islands, I used my Asia Miles to book a compact car. I have been using Asia Miles for a Hertz car rental without any issue, including the car rental when we were in Maui the first week. However, our vacation was nearly ruined by Hertz in Honolulu. After arriving in HNL, we proceed to the car rental center. As we stopped by in front of the Hertz counter, there was a big sign stating "All customer please proceed to Gold Service Desk." Since I am actually a Gold Member of Hertz thru Amex Platinum, I proceed to the Gold Desk. I waited for about 20 mins until I spoke to a rep. Very quickly, the rep told me that she couldn't help me with the reservation because my reservation was a prepaid reservation so none of my Gold status would apply. I told her can she just be flexible on this since my whole family with two kids were very tired waiting and I have already waited 20 mins+ outside of the Gold Desk AND I am actually a Gold member of Hertz. She just flat out refused to help and sent me back to the main counters. Back at the main counters, I waited another 30 mins before I could at last talk to someone. As the rep brought up my reservation, I asked him if I could talk to a manager or someone in charge. My intention was to share with management that it could be frustrating to customers with that sign in front (directing everyone to the Gold Desk). The rep was able to find the manager, Kevin, to address my concern. I was not being agitative and my whole intention was to share with him some feedbacks as a customer and how he could make his operation and process more efficient and effective. Right off the back, Kevin was being defensive in saying that each branch is different and this branch that he is managing would not allow any flexibility under my situation. I was thinking that's fine if my constructive criticism is not welcome, I would just keep my mouth shut. A few minutes later, the Rep was pointing something on the screen to Kevin and that's when the amazing thing happened. Kevin asked me if I am a "foreigner.." He said he could not honor the prepaid reservation using my Asia miles because those rates were intended for people outside of the US. I told him that as far as I know, Asia Miles is a mileage program that anyone in the whole world, regardless of which country of resident, can apply to become a member. But he refused to apply any common sense or simple logic and flat out denied to complete my reservation. Kevin told me I have to contact my travel agent and request for a refund. It is obvious that it is a form a retaliation since I was giving Kevin my comments as a customer. With my family waiting for an hour with an empty stomach (it was about 3 PM at the time and we didn't have lunch yet), I asked them to put me in a car ASAP and I will pay out-of-pocket. Kevin directed the rep to give me the "walk-in" rate for the same class of car that I was originally reserved for (mid-size sedan). After another 10 mins of slowly clicking on the keyboard, the rep offered me a mid-size car for $169 a day for 5 days. With taxes and fees, it would be $1000 or $200 a day. Since I didn't want to prolong my family's waiting outside, I accepted this outrageously expensive car rental offer and drove off. None of the employees working there show any sign of compassion toward my situation. May be because I am Chinese American who refused to keep quiet when something is not right? Afterward I research on Costco and found that I could book a mid-size SUV at a competitor of Hertz for half of the price. I now realized that they just want to rip me off since the prepaid rate I got from Asia Miles was such a good deal that they don't want to honor so they just made up some excuses to fool me. The next day, we drove 40 minutes back to the airport, returned the car to Hertz (so we only paid 1 night at $200 instead of 5 nights), and picked up a brand new Rav 4 for half of the price that Hertz was...

Hertz Case - 24297775 & 53490154 I made a car reservation weeks in advance. Once I arrived to the airport I had to wait 90 minutes to receive a vehicle. The vehicle that I had reserved was not available and they gave me a downgrade vehicle. Upon inspection I noticed that one of the tires was low on air. I showed the rep and was instructed to take a picture, keep an eye on it and be in my way. I asked for a different vehicle and was told that there wasn't anything else available until the next morning. While driving I noticed that the PSI on the tire was getting lower and lower. I called hertz and was instructed to take the car to the nearest hertz to be looked at and repaired or exchanged. The rep provided an address to a hetz about 20 minutes from my hotel. I stopped by a shop to get air on the tire and was on my way to hertz. Once I arrived to the address provided by the rep, I realized that the hertz location was closed and out of business. The tire was almost completely flat by then. I reached for the trunk to replace the tire with the spare only to realize that the jack was not in it's designated spot and nowhere to be found. I contacted hertz and was instructed to contact a towing company to get the car back to the airport for an exchange. I had to pay the towing company $100 to jack the car up and change the tire. The tow truck driver inspected the tire and noted that there was a failed patch on the tire, that is why the tire was losing air and that it was not safe to drive on it. He mentioned that he has seen similar situation to this with vehicles coming from the airport location. Once I arrived back to the airport to exchange the vehicle I had to wait around 90 minutes for a new vehicle. The new vehicle had scratches, body damage and a cracked headlight. I notes the rep and was told totake a picture and be on my way. As I was driving the second vehicle it started to vibrate once I reached 45 mph. I pressed on the brakes to slow down and the car started to shake. The vehicle had a broken rotor and the brake pads where completely gone. I pulled over immediately and parked the car at the nearest safest location. I contacted hetz and was instructed to return the vehicle to the airport location as soon as possible at my expense. I had already lost many hours dealing with the first vehicle and had somewhere to be. I got an Uber to reach my destination and then Uber back to retrieve the vehicle. I had to wait for many hours for the roads to clear since I did not feel safe driving a vehicle with a broker rotor and without breaks. Upon arrival, the rep received the vehicle; apologized, wrote "no breaks" on the windshield and asked me to wait for another vehicle. About 90 minutes later I was instructed to pick up the new car at the airport parking lot. The new vehicle had issues with the infotainment system. I showed the rep and was told to take a picture and be on my way. Besides having a broken computer and infotainment system the car was drivable. When I returned the third vehicle, the rep was apologizing for the experience and asked me to wait for a manager. I had a plane to catch but still some time to spare. The manager showed up 30 minutes later. I shared my experience and he mentioned that he wanted to correct the situation. He promised me to waive all charges and he was going to provide me with a couple of $100 coupons for future use. He mentioned he needed some time to enter all the information in the system. He jumped from computer to computer and station to station. About 40 minutes later he came back and informed me that all his systems were out and that his printers were not working so he was unable to enter the information on the system nor print out the promised coupons. He guaranteed however that he would enter the information and refund all charges as soon as his system was back up. I missed 3 paid vacation activities and spent a lot of money in Ubers to fix their mistakes. Now I am getting harassed by hertz asking for my insurance info. I would not recommend renting from...

We arrived at Honolulu Airport Thrifty car rental office at approximately 11:41am on Friday 22 November 2024

Greeted by Bonn.

Bonn requested I insert my credit card for the authorization. He processed $1 to the credit card account and then the required authorisation amount of $200. This is when the terminal “approved” the transaction and the computer screen that Bonn was looking at, declined the transaction.

This is when the service and interaction went down hill.

I found this unusual,so I used a second credit card exact same problem, a third,fourth,fifth and sixth all with different Australian Banks, all declined.

Bonn suggested I phone my bank to find out the problem. My Bank could see the transactions “approved” and then the transactions declined by Thrifty.

The Banks approval of the transaction and subsequent Merchant decline, was advised to Bonn, who said “no, no we’ve only just implemented a new system, its not the terminal, IT’S YOUR BANK! We had a bank representative from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia on the phone while Bonn was trying our credit cards and still he was FIRM and ADAMANT that its not Thrifty decling the transaction its MY bank. He wouldn’t believe it’s not my bank as he was correctly seeing “Decline” on his screen.

After running out of credit cards, I requested Bonn to try another terminal. He said again “ it’s not the system” It’s only brand new. The terminals are two days old. It can’t be the system.”

We then asked if someone else could look at the transaction to see if they could assist.

At this time, 1.10pm, Chris, another Thrifty staff member, advised Bonn of an email/memo that was issued 2 days prior relating to international credit cards that declined through the system and the work around on how to process the transaction manually in the system. Bonn said he was not aware of this email because he’d not been at work for 2 days.

Whilst Bonn was focused on providing great customer service, I felt he was more concerned about upselling us. Bonn definitely is in the right job to match his personality. However he neglected to update himself with the current procedure relating to the processing of foreign credit cards where a decline was displayed on the Thrifty rental screen. Failure to do this, unfortantly for us, we were the recipients of his lack of knowledge causing vast amounts of stress and aniexty to the start of our vacation.

For 1 and a half hours, based on his lack of knowledge Bonn had regarding these new processes for foreign credit card declines, we went back and forth, instead of him being aware of this new procedure to override the foreign credit card declines in the thrifty system, we could have been on our way within 5 minutes of Bonn greeting us. Bonn said, he had served 2 other Australian customers on the day and their cards worked. On the surface it appears that this is not truth, as one of the customers he served whilst we were speaking to the Australian Bank, was from New Zealand, not Australia.

Finally… at 1.21pm we had our rental contract and were finally on our way.

Bonns lack of knowledge caused us vast amounts of unnecessary frustration, stress and anxiety, when we had just landed in Honolulu - what a way to start a vacation.

In summary - whilst interacting with Bonn we’d mentioned several times this must be a Thrifty system issue, Bonn would not consider this or request assistance as it was a brand new system. Finally when another employee intervened , he advised Bonn how to process the transaction through the system.

At no stage was there an apology from Bonn for the stress, anxiety and frustration he just...