Hertz - Dane County Regional Airport

As I mentioned the other day, on our long weekend to the frozen Midwest, we flew into Madison, WI at the Dane County Regional Airport (MSN).

The airport was pretty simple and functional with a the usual souvenir shops and pseudo-"local" restaurants serving regional Wisconsin fare like brats and cheese dishes. We landed just before 4PM local time and made our way through towards baggage claim.

We had rented a car from Hertz for 48 hours to drive up to the Wisconsin Dells on Friday afternoon and back to Madison on Sunday. Using Autoslash, we were able to get our rental down to just $40 total. Pretty sweet.

Of course, we selected the small Compact car that seated 4 with enough trunk space for 1 large roller board, but it was enough for our short 1 hour drive and back. Here's a photo of what a Toyota Yaris normally looks like. I suppose my cheap father could have splurged a bit more and gotten us a full size vehicle, but we hardly used the rental car this weekend, so I suppose it was fine (albeit embarrassing). Most of the time, the rental agency will not have such a small car in stock, so they'll give up a free upgrade to the next largest tier. So we took our chances.

The Hertz counter (along with all the other car rental counters) are next to the Baggage Claim area on the bottom floor of the Dane County Regional Airport. While normal Hertz facilities allow #1 Club Gold members (free to join) to just head to their vehicle with the keys in the car, this location required you to stop by the counter and wait in line to get your keys. Not the end of the world. Considering it was about 11 degrees F outside, we were happy to handle our reservation indoors.

But unfortunately, my father's plan didn't work. No upgrade this time. We were given a 2014 Toyota Yaris with 6970 miles on it. Our compact car would be waiting for us in parking slot #38. So we made our way outside to the covered (but open air) parking garage where the rental cars were parked. Given NYC was a balmy 39 degrees when we left, having our faces crack upon feeling the frozen air reminded us that we were in Wisconsin in February.

Unfortunately, the Hertz cars in the parking garage were all numbers 1-19. Baffled, we walked around in the outdoor parking garage looking for our #38. Finally, my father realized that our car wasn't parked in the covered garage. Nope. It was parked OUTSIDE next to the garage. As seen on this computer generated model of the Dane County Regional Airport that my father commissioned stole off of Google images, you can see the massive covered parking garage, but then you will see the red circle where our $40 compact rental car was located. Did I mention that it was Wisconsin in February?

So of course, instead of having a clean car to start loading our luggage into, we had to make our way through some crushed snow that had accumulated all around the uncovered parking lot and then find that our beautiful red Toyota Yaris...

covered in about 2 inches of snow. Not the end of the world, but not something my parents were used to from Hertz. Of course, as my father looked around at all the other Hertz vehicles parked next to ours (still in the uncovered parking lot), they were all 100% free of snow as if someone went by and cleaned them all. Our rental car was literally the only one with snow over it.

But thankfully, Hertz was kind enough to include a brush to clean the snow off and scrape off the ice from the windshield. After remembering what it was like growing up in suburban NJ, my father cleaned off the vehicle and got it heated up. Off we were!

Fast forward to Sunday when we returned our car. Unlike most other airports where you would drive the car back to a checkout line where an agent would scan the car and mark it returned, at the Dane County Regional Airport, you had to park the car yourself and then bring the keys inside back to the Hertz counter. Fortunately for us, my father was able to find an open parking spot, though I imagine it would have been very stressful if we were running late and there weren't any open spots.

All in all, we still like Hertz over some of the other discount rental agencies. I mean, we can't really fault them too much given it was really more of the Dane County Regional Airport's infrastructure than anything else. But if we ever fly into Madison in the dead of winter again, we'll know what to expect for next time.

California Rental Car Trouble

After landing in San Francisco Airport late Friday night, my father went to Hurtz [sic] to pick up his rental car.

Hurtz is supposedly one of the top 2 car rental companies in the United States if not the world.  But this time around, they sucked.

Before we boarded our flight, my father got an email from Hurtz saying that we had been upgraded to an SUV for our 3 day weekend rental along with the parking slot that we would find our car (thus avoiding any lines at the counter).  Sounded pretty promising!

But when we arrived at the SFO Hurtz parking lot, we didn't see his name on the #1 Club Gold big board. Not a big deal. But when we went to the assigned parking spot that was emailed to him hours before, it wasn't an SUV. And the name tag had someone else's name on it.

So it was 7:30PM Pacific (10:30PM Eastern) and after a 6 hour flight that didn't serve food, my parents were getting agitated. Especially since my father was bragging to my mother that Hurtz was the best car rental company and that we could just go to the car and drive off immediately.

But now, he found himself waiting at the counter while 2 foreigners were taking their sweet time booking their car rentals for the weekend with their foreign debit cards.

Eventually, they called my father up to the desk and they explained to him that they had him arriving at 3PM that afternoon instead of 7PM.   Since he wasn't there at 3PM, they cancelled his reservation. WTF?  My father showed him the email confirmation showing 7PM, but you can imagine how invested this particular employee was in this little Hurtz IT debacle.

Despite saying he didn't have any full size vehicles left, he somehow found one after punching some keys on his computer - a "wonderful" Chevy Malibu.  After walking to the other end of the parking lot with all our luggage (and no Smart Cart), we were finally on our way.

Fast forward to Saturday afternoon when we took the car to drive to Santa Cruz to see Big Basin Redwoods State Park.  My mother had never seen the majestic California redwood and my father really wanted her (and me) to experience it.  The drive as just under 2 hours but we had nothing to do all day (and we had already been to San Francisco a few months earlier so not much more to see).


View Larger Map
We made good time driving and we reached Big Basin right around 2PM.  As we went up the mountain road, my mother started to panic as we went higher and higher on the winding road.  The view was beautiful but also scary because many parts of the road weren't protected by barriers.

My mother's mind (being raised Russian) immediately went to "worst case scenario" and started imagining her family falling thousands of feet off the edge. She even started to get nauseous as we kept turning sharply to make our way up the mountain.

But my father was getting frustrated.  He wanted my mother to enjoy the scenery, but instead she was freaking out and trying not to vomit.  Kind of the opposite reaction he was hoping for.  So he pulled over at a  "Scenic Outlook" spot and tried to park next to a big SUV.  But suddenly, the front of the car dropped, and my father slammed on the breaks.

We were stuck in a ditch.

The photo here isn't our car, but my father wasn't in the mood to whip out his Canon to memorialize the moment.  His mind started racing about having to call a tow truck to drive up the mountain and get his rental car out.  He started thinking how much that would cost.  And how he didn't have AAA.  And how the premium of his car insurance would go up.  And how he didn't use the right credit card to rent the car (because it only provided secondary coverage and not primary).

The front tires weren't getting any traction.  So he took a chance and drove forward a bit until the front wheels got on the ground.  Then he tried to back up. But now, the undercarriage was too low and kept getting caught on the pavement.  He repeated this 5 or 6 times.  Note:  the definition of Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Luckily for us, a nearby cyclist was watching all the events unfold and offered his advice.  He suggested we start to turn parallel to the road in the hopes that it would allow the wheels to make their way back onto the pavement.  After a bunch of back and forth driving, we were out of the ditch!

We had the car checked at a Jiffy Lube in Santa Cruz and apparently things were fine (except for a dent in the undercarriage), but we returned the car at the airport the next day and didn't mention anything.  It's been 3 weeks so hopefully someone else has rented the car and is now on the hook.

Of course, my father tells me, "None of this would have happened if they just upgraded me to the SUV in the first place."