Made a booking for a BMW 318i on Hertz' Aer Lingus microsite. Confirmed. Prepaid. Sorted.
Arrived in Shannon Airport to be told that at 28 I was too young to be given the car requested. Apparently, 30 is the minimum age for them to insure on a BMW in Ireland. So was given a Toyoya instead and told to pursue the booking company for compensation (but hey! It was Hertz! You're Hertz! What's the problem?).
Arrived back in the UK and complained. Waited 18 days for a response and was told that I hadn't complied with the Ts & Cs on the website so this was my fault and no refund would be payable. What? I couldn't find any mention of the BMW having stricter age restrictions when I booked, and I'm one of the few careful sorts who does scour the small print.
Curiously, a friend who accompanied me on the Ireland trip fell in exactly the same situation. Same age (to within a month or so). Same booking, same dates, same you-name-it. Only conceivable difference was he quoted country of residence as US whereas I'd said UK. He got a refund and an appropriately fawning apologetic email.
So, armed with this I phoned customer services again to ask why the double-standards and was told to wait another 10 working days for them to reconsider.
Went ballistic. Still waiting for customer services supervisor to get back to me.
If this was a simple mistake on my behalf, I'd understand. But the booking was made in good faith using all the information I could find on the site. And it's so easily avoidable... they'd gone to no effort to spell out the age restriction clearly, or - as some competitors do - check date-of-birth on booking to avoid such problems. I'll stop just short of saying they're deliberately trying to catch out their customers, but I will say they're doing absolutely nothing to prevent the pitfall. (And why should they? There I am, standing in the rental office, pre-paid for the car. Do I run off to a competitor there and then and shell out even more or just lump it?)
I'm now heartily recommending to all who know me to avoid Hertz at all costs
